


Setting Sun

by LittleLostStar



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Anxious Katsuki Yuuri, But we can't all commission custom arias so bass-heavy fuck jams will do in a pinch, Eros Katsuki Yuuri, Happy Ending, If you think about it Victor did kinda start this with the whole Stammi Vicino thing, It takes a while for Yuuri to get a clue but once he does it's on like Donkey Kong, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pining Victor Nikiforov, Secret Relationship, Sexual Content, Slow Burn, Social Media, Song Lyrics, This began as a songfic and then became every possible songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:35:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 114,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9141265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleLostStar/pseuds/LittleLostStar
Summary: Canon-divergent AU. Just before he skates at the Hot Springs On Ice, Yuuri receives a photo of his drunken GPF banquet antics; consumed with humiliation over a night he can’t remember, he loses the competition. Victor goes back to Russia with Yurio, and Yakov comes to train Yuuri in Japan. One night, frustrated and miserable, Yuuri posts some personally relevant song lyrics on Instagram—and wakes up the next morning to find that Victor has posted lyrics that seem to be a reply.With the world watching their every move, Victor and Yuuri begin trading lyrics in a secret conversation; from playful rivalry to intense seduction, through Savage Garden and San Fermin, their virtual affair unfolds, hidden in plain sight. But the Grand Prix approaches, bringing with it newfound opportunities for Yuuri’s career, and his new life hinges on two things: winning the gold, and staying away from Victor.CHAPTER 20: “I have something for you.”Victor tilts his head to the side, just a little. “But…it’s your birthday. If anything I should have a present for you. Is this a thing in Japan?”Yuuri shakes his head. “I…I just woke up this morning and I realized I wanted to do this.”





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m a huge music nerd and a sucker for steamy forbidden hate-then-love romances, so when those two things combine, this is the result. It’s been a very long time since I wrote a longform fic, and this has been quite rewarding to write so far, so I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> There is, sadly, no such thing as a Lyric Post feature for Instagram in real life.

Yuuri Katsuki sits in the locker room of his hometown ice rink, which is packed to capacity for the first time in years. His borrowed costume itches, and he contemplates ripping it off and running away as fast as his feet can carry him, but he is weighed down by the skates on his feet and he knows it’s a dumb idea anyhow. Today is the day of the Hot Springs on Ice tournament.

By all sane accounts, this competition should not exist. Yuuri’s idol, the champion skater Victor Nikiforov, has traveled all the way from Russia to offer to coach him; however, in order for this outrageous dream to come true, Yuuri must win this challenge against the Russian Punk, fifteen-year-old Yuri Plisetsky. They’re both skating the short programs that Victor has choreographed for them.

Yuuri’s heart begins to pound. Six months ago, the very concept of being coached by Victor was a pipe dream so outlandish that he wouldn’t have even dared to dream it; if someone had told him that he’d be skating Victor’s choreography, never mind that it was a routine about sexual love and seduction, he would have laughed himself sick. And yet here he is, nearly ready to take the ice and fight for Victor’s attention and expertise. To fight for his own future as a skater, for the chance to spend his final year under the improbable tutelage of the person who inspired him to skate in the first place.

Yuuri’s not stupid. It’s obvious that the seduction of his short program is a seduction of Victor, in some way or another. He went to Minako late last night to refine some of his movements to become more feminine, to embody the beautiful woman who entrances the playboy who’s just passing through town. If he’s honest, it’s a little bit exciting to step into this mindset; it’s new and dangerous, but also intoxicating, and the reward is overwhelmingly worth the risk.

_Victor will coach me to a Grand Prix gold. He will choreograph my routines, jump with me, spin with me._

He has a few minutes left before warmup officially begins, and his anxiety has declined a little, so Yuuri does what all Millennials do when bored: he reaches for his phone.

He only intends to check Instagram, or perhaps see if his friend Phichit has sent him a good luck message, but instead Yuuri sees a text from Christophe Giacometti, the Senior Men’s champion and the silver medalist at the previous year’s Grand Prix. It’s been so long since they spoke that Yuuri is momentarily convinced that it must be a mistake, but the text begins with his own name:

 

“ _Hey Yuuri!_

_Saw on IG that you and Victor are hanging out again—it’s about damn time! ;-)_

_-C”_

 

Attached to the text is an image which makes Yuuri’s heart stop. The first thing he sees is Victor—resplendent in the dark green suit he wore to last year’s GPF banquet—with a look on his face that is equal parts confused and uncomfortable. He’s been crushed into a hug by Yuuri, who is wearing nothing but his wrinkled shirt, his briefs, and a tie looped around his head like a headband. Yuuri, very clearly drunk, with his legs spread wide against Victor’s thighs, hips frozen in mid-gyration, looking blissed out and sloppy and desperate.

_I—I don’t—what is this? This can’t have been me—I didn’t go to the banquet last year. I didn’t interact with anyone. I..._

Yuuri wants to believe that it’s just a Photoshopped joke, but as he looks at the picture again he experiences a sudden flash of muddled memory—of a cheering crowd and pounding music and feeling bold and hilarious and dangerously confident. He hears himself mumbling words that he has no memory of saying, but which are horrifically familiar all the same: “...you’ll become my coach, right? Be my coach, Victor!”

_Oh, no._

It all begins to click together.

The shame which consumes him now is so overwhelming that it physically hurts, and Yuuri hits the Delete button before he can even think about it. The photo vanishes, but it’s burned into his memory like an afterimage from a bright light. He feels the wave of panic rise and crash against him, pulling him under, and he doesn’t have the strength to fight it. He can’t even cry; he just goes numb, staring blankly ahead, trying to keep from hyperventilating as the waves crash again and again: panic, anxiety, shame, self-loathing. A rotating carousel of misery, and all totally deserved.

 _You’re stupid. You’re a failure. You’re impossible, incapable, out of control. You’re a pathetic excuse for a skater, and an even worse person. Victor doesn’t think you’re talented; he thinks you’re a charity case. You showed Victor that you’re an immature moron, and then you forgot about it, and for the past few weeks you’ve been treating him like everything is normal._ _You begged him to come coach you and he decided to see how bad you truly were and now you’ve trapped yourself in a competition you cannot win._ _He was laughing at you. He’ll laugh at you for the rest of time. You can’t come back from this._

“Yuuri?” Minako sticks her head into the change room.

Yuuri flinches. “Oh! H-hey, Minako-sensei.”

She smiles warmly. “It’s time. Are you ready?”

_No. No no no no no no no no I’m not. I’m not. I don’t want to do this. This was a mistake. Abort mission. Do not proceed. Please, Yuuri, for the love of god, find some way out._

“Yes.”

_You fucking idiot._

 

Yuuri completely blacks out during Yuri Plisetsky’s performance; all he can see is That Photograph, and all he can hear is the blood rushing through his ears. The only indication he gets that Yuri has finished is the shift in his peripheral vision as the audience rises to its feet to applaud.

Yuuri’s vision narrows into a tunnel and he feels like he might pass out.

_Victor, laughing at me on the worst day of my life._

_Victor, coming all the way to Japan to see just how much of a loser I really am._

The tunnel vision erupts into a violent orgy of colour as a pair of blue-green eyes float into Yuuri’s view. Victor.

“Yuuri. It’s your turn.”

_Oh fuck no._

He somehow finds himself steady on his feet, somehow hears himself say something ridiculous about pork cutlet bowls to Victor, somehow hears Victor murmur back: “Of course. I love pork cutlet bowls.”

But Yuuri can’t see Victor as he is now; all he can see is Victor in the green suit he wore to the banquet. A million possible scenarios play out in Yuuri’s head, one after another, trying to create the narrative that lead to the photograph.

_Yuuri, drunk, grabs Victor’s wrist so hard it bruises a little._

_Yuuri, drunk, begins dancing like a middle-school teenager while Victor looks dumbfounded and Chris laughs until he cries._

_Yuuri, drunk, vomits into a plant somewhere and spends the rest of the night stinking of bile and getting far too close to everyone’s faces._

And then somehow he’s on the ice and the crowd is roaring like an all-consuming monster. The announcer at the rink begins to speak, his voice grating into Yuuri’s head like gravel in a blender: “We’re pleased to introduce a skater who represents Japan—”

— _and loses, all the time, because he’s a joke and the entire country is too polite to step in and stop the embarrassment_ —

“—a late bloomer who’s become a rising star—”

— _rising all the way to the Grand Prix finals and then coming in dead last and then getting stupid drunk and pawing at the world’s best skater like a predator and STILL no one stopped me because they want to see me fail they want to see me fail they—_

“Katsuki Yuuri!”

_This isn’t right._

As he takes his initial pose at centre ice, the announcer keeps talking, and Yuuri feels his hands begin to shake uncontrollably. He’s never _not_ been nervous before a performance, but this is different; there’s no thrill, no hidden well of joy, no inner fire. There’s just shame and terror and the overwhelming urge to run away, except he can’t, because the music has started. Yuuri’s limbs move of their own accord, stirred by muscle memory and conditioned to respond, and when he tosses his head seductively, he locks eyes with Victor and has to swallow the urge to throw up.

The routine begins in earnest with a long step sequence. Yuuri has never had a problem with step sequences before, except now his legs seem to be made of concrete blocks, because try as he might he can’t seem to get any flair to the movements and they all seem way too small. He can feel the fabric on one leg swish against his other skate, and a tiny piece snags against the toe pick and trips him up, sending Yuuri’s arms flailing awkwardly outwards in a desperate attempt to stay upright. He can’t hear very well, but he just _knows_ that the crowd is disappointed already.

_Kill me now. Spare me the rest of this torture._

Yuuri settles into a camel spin, and the arena becomes even more of a blur. _Please wake up,_ he begs every entity he can think of. _Please let this be a bad dream._

No such luck. Yuuri begins gathering speed for his first jump, and every strike of his blades on the ice sounds like a desperate plea for help. First off: a spread eagle into a triple axel. Yuuri’s always been fine at this jump, but the modified takeoff feels even more awkward than usual, and he lands heavily and just barely manages to mask his wobbliness with some footwork. Next up: quadruple salchow.

_Come on, Yuuri—fuck._

“He’s stepped out of the salchow!” the announcer narrates, and a small sigh rises from the audience. Yuuri feels his feet become even heavier.

_This was a mistake. This has all been a mistake. I can’t seduce Victor; I can’t seduce a fucking pork cutlet bowl._

Yuuri slides into a lunge drag and the photograph flashes before his eyes again, and he can almost feel the gyrating movements of his hips against Victor’s legs, and _oh fuck god damn it it’s the final jump._ A combination quadruple toe loop immediately followed by a triple toe loop. Yuuri’s last thought before takeoff is mentally screaming _NO_ at the top of his lungs, before he feels every last molecule of his body betray him, and he closes his eyes for a brief, endless moment of weightlessness before he hits the ice hard on his right hip and wrist.

The crowd gasps, reverberating inside Yuuri’s skull, and he forces himself to his feet; while it probably doesn’t take more than a few seconds, everything plays out in excruciatingly slow motion for him. He’s now significantly behind in the choreography, and pulls himself into an upright spin for a few rotations before forcing his body through the last few motions, blinded by the hot tears already streaming down his face. He finally ends with his arms wrapped around himself to embody a passionate embrace, and the music cuts out with a flourish.

Silence.

Yuuri is shaking so hard that he can barely hold the pose. Someone in the audience coughs; he squeezes his eyes shut as tears begin to drip off of his chin and hit the ice below, and then eventually—after a few centuries pass, or so it seems—the applause begins, rippling out from one section through to around the stadium. It grows stronger, a healthy amount of clapping, but he already knows that nobody is on their feet and there will be no whistles or cheers to be found. Of course they’ll applaud; they’re his friends and family, and even though his eyes are still shut Yuuri can feel their sympathy and pity and earnest sadness over this failure, and he prays for the ground to open up and swallow him. Eventually Yuuri lets his arms drop, and his body sags like a pile of wet newspapers; his hip and wrist ache dully as he skates to the rink exit, where he doesn’t even pause to put on his skate guards; he limps past Victor without making eye contact, pulling away from arms that reach for him from all directions; he throws himself down the hall to the locker room, rips off his skates so quickly that he almost wrenches an ankle, and slips on the first shoes he sees.

_Get out get out get out get out_

If anyone tries to stop him, Yuuri never sees them; the world has become empty and silent, and he hits the pavement outside of the Ice Castle at a dead run, taking off for someplace safe. He can’t go home, where Victor and Yuri have rooms just down the hall. Eventually Yuuri realizes that he’s heading in the direction of Minako’s dance studio; once there, he retrieves the hidden key from under the doormat and lets himself inside before he collapses, pouring sweat and dizzy from hyperventilating. The costume—Victor’s costume—feels as though it might choke him, and Yuuri pulls at it desperately until he frees himself and scrambles away as if the fabric is a nest of spiders. Wearing nothing but boxers and thin socks, he curls up in the corner behind the piano, and, finally, bursts out into the ugliest sobs imaginable.

It takes an hour before Minako finds him there, and if she is stunned or angry or sympathetic, she never says a word. Yuuri turns away, unable to look at her, and buries his face into his hands, flinching away when she gently drapes her long sweater around his bare shoulders. He hears Minako sit down next to him, where she waits in patient silence until he eventually stops shuddering.

When Yuuri arrives home, shell-shocked and pale, Victor and Yuri are already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory plug! I'm on Tumblr at [a snazzy new URL!](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com)


	2. Fair and Square

It’s been slightly more than two weeks since the Hot Springs On Ice event, and Yuuri has tentatively crept out of his bedroom in search of something to eat. It’s past eleven o’clock, and the house is dark and quiet; the guests have either been sent away or are snoring in their rooms, and his family is tucked away upstairs, finished with their work for the night. Yuuri pads silently along the hardwood floor of the main room of Yu-topia, relishing the silence and bathing in the warm glow of the lamps his mother always leaves on. He’s headed for the kitchen, craving some rice with the Western-style sesame steak sauce he discovered in Detroit and introduced to his mother, who immediately put it on the menu. It’s been a while since Yuuri was so delightfully, peacefully alone, and he feels better than he has in a very long time; he can finally stand up straight without his heart aching to the point of collapse. For the past two weeks he hasn’t listened to music and has barely had an appetite, forcing down food only to reassure his mother that he’s not ill.

With a rumbling stomach and the constant fear that depression will swing back down and decapitate his ability to function, Yuuri decides to be quick; he throws together some leftover rice with sauce and edamame, and puts the bowl into the kitchen’s tiny, neglected microwave. He’s reaching for some chopsticks and fantasizing about rich sesame goodness when— _THUMP_ _THUMP THUMP_. The sound makes Yuuri jump, and the chopsticks skitter across the floor.

_THUMP THUMP THUMP._

It’s someone knocking at the door, pounding so strongly that it seems as though it might pop off its hinges. The sound is urgent and intense enough that Yuuri scrambles to open it, slipping a little on the polished wood floor. When he catches his balance, he looks up into the cold grey eyes of Yakov Feltsman, the infamous Russian coach. _Victor’s coach_. Yuuri’s jaw drops.

Yakov scowls. “Close your mouth,” he barks. “You look like a fish. And let me in; don’t you have any manners?”

Yuuri obeys, stepping aside to let Yakov enter. His heart has dropped to his toes, and he’s nearly dizzy from shock; his stomach is no longer growling, and the delicious rice bowl is instantly forgotten. _How many other Russians are going to show up at my door?_

Yakov turns around, and his hat brim casts his eyes into ominous shadow. “What are you looking at?”

Yuuri finally finds his voice. “W-what are you doing here?”

Yakov removes his coat and hands it over. “I’m your new coach,” he replies.

“ _What?_ ”

“You heard me,” comes the snappy reply. “I’ve been sent because _someone_ has decided to play at being a coach this season instead of letting the professionals do their jobs for Yuri Plisetsky’s debut. So now I’m saddled with...the other Yuuri.” He looks Yuuri up and down with a scowl. “Not much to you, is there?”

“N-no? And...why?”

Yakov shrugs. “Victor says you don’t have a coach, and it seems that if you don’t want him, then you get me. According to my _former_ student, it’s apparently only fair.”

“I—I can’t—”

Yakov waves away the question, which dies in Yuuri’s throat. “The fees are taken care of, but you do owe me a significant debt.” He steps right into Yuuri’s personal space. “As a result of this hideous inconvenience to myself and the rest of the skaters in my arena, you _will_ be winning the Grand Prix this year.”

“W-winning?!” Yuuri tries and fails to keep the panic from his voice.

The old Russian grins, and it’s actually more terrifying than his frown. “It’s what I do,” he replies. “And if Nikiforov and Plisetsky want to play at being professionals, then fuck them and the horses they rode in on. They think they can cut me out of the championships this year. Victor thinks he can _replace_ me.”

When Yakov laughs, it sends a wave of nausea rippling through Yuuri’s body. He realizes he’s still holding Yakov’s winter coat, and he turns around to hang it in the closet; when he turns back, he finds Yakov nearly nose-to-nose with him, and it takes every ounce of willpower not to flinch away. Yakov’s steel-grey eyes glint and it reminds Yuuri of sharp knives slicing across flesh. “I make winners; are you ready to be a winner, Katsuki?”

Yuuri’s memory flips through images like a Rolodex, one awful moment after another: dancing with Victor at the banquet, seeing him in the hot springs, learning the beautiful Eros choreography, and the ripple of gasps and sighs from the audience at the Hot Springs on Ice when he fell out of his final jump. Tears threaten to blind him and his heart blooms with anxiety, but instead he swallows and nods. “Yes,” he answers. “I am ready. I want to win.”

Now Yakov’s smile is more like a sneer. “It doesn’t matter what you want,” he says. “Now, bring my bags inside, and go to sleep. We begin tomorrow at 5:30am.”

  
**(One Week Later)**

“Katsuki, that was the worst lutz I’ve ever seen! Five-year-olds do better than that! Get up!!”

The ice stings against Yuuri’s cheek, but he keeps his head down for one more moment, desperate to cool himself off. His breath drags ragged from his lungs. He’d thought he was back in decent shape thanks to Victor’s initial coaching proposal, but Yakov has superhuman expectations; Yuuri feels he has been pushed to the absolute brink—and it’s barely past noon.

Yuuri has always heard that the Russians are ridiculously dedicated to the cause, but he never imagined it would be like this. Not only does Yakov sleep across the hall (in the room that Victor once occupied, a fact which Yuuri hates to remember but always thinks about whenever he passes by the door), but he insists on being by Yuuri’s side almost constantly. _Time to lean is time to get off your ass and train_ , according to Yakov. Yuuri has given up on trying to convince the old Russian that he’s not a raw beginner, and his days have become an uninspired blur of endless drills and exercises.

“ _Katsuki!_ ” Yakov’s yell yanks Yuuri rudely back into the present. The coach’s voice is not so much intimidating as it is a force of nature in and of itself—a hurricane which promises destruction and can only be endured, not avoided.

Yuuri’s face crumples for a fraction of a second, but he puts one hand squarely on the ice, then the other, and pushes himself up with a groan. A sob threatens to shake his shoulders but he breathes as deeply as he can in order to calm it as he loops around the ice back to where Yakov stands. Yuuri reaches for his water bottle, but Yakov snatches it away.

“Do the lutz right, and then you get a water break,” he grunts.

“Yes, Coach,” Yuuri mumbles. As he skates off, mouth dry and lips chapped, he tries to force himself to think about something that will motivate him, but all he can think of is Yuri and Victor, training in Russia, probably having a way better time of it.

He tries for a lutz, but only makes it a single. _Not enough speed at the outset,_ Yuuri thinks, correcting course to try again.

“Let’s pick up that pace, kid!”

 _Ohmygodfuckyou_ . Yuuri steadies, nods imperceptibly to himself, and takes off; the arena seats become a blur as he turns, shifts his centre of gravity, and— _oof—_ launches into the air. Yuuri whips himself around, imagining flight and rustling wings, and when he lands— _oops, little wobbly in the ankle—_ he breaks out into a shy smile. _That’s a triple, you old jerk._ Yuuri slides to a stop in front of Yakov, who is...still frowning.

 _Oh come ON!_ It takes all of Yuuri’s willpower to avoid rolling his eyes, and the task requires so much concentration that he nearly misses the water bottle that’s been lobbed at his head.

“That was better,” Yakov admits, as Yuuri sucks down the water, “but your ankle—”

“—was sloppy, yeah.”

Frown becomes snarl. “Don’t interrupt me, Katsuki. I want you to do ten triple lutzes in a row, until you can land with stability. _Now_.”

Yuuri hands back the water bottle, shoulders heavy, and as he skates off he can hear Yakov call: “And if you fall over, the counter will reset to zero!”

 _I’m in hell_ , Yuuri realizes. _I’ve committed a grave sin and I’m in lutz hell. I will die before I even reach the Grand Prix qualifiers._

_Victor, you’ve already won. I’m done for._

 

While cooling down post-practice, exhausted beyond comprehension and ironically listening to his Pump Up playlist, Yuuri replays the Hot Springs event in his head. It’s been a little less than a month, but it remains horrifically vivid. Again and again he sees himself skating the Eros routine, and again and again he falls, he trips, he under-rotates. He loses, obviously and undeniably. Yakov’s training regimen doesn’t help things; Yuuri has never felt this worn out in his entire life, and he feels as though he’s been pushed to the furthest possible limit just short of full-blown injury. _I bet Yuri and Victor never felt this awful while training under Yakov,_ Yuuri thinks, and in that moment he hates himself so much he wants to shrivel up and die. _All I wanted was to get my love of skating back. All I wanted was to have one last year, one good year, where things maybe went right. But that will never happen, and now I’m stuck._

 _Why would Victor even send Yakov anyway?_ Some warped and demented sense of pity, Yuuri assumes. A bizarre Russian notion of fair play, or perhaps just outright revenge for the embarrassment of last year’s banquet.

For a brief moment he contemplates quitting, just hanging up his skates and sleeping in tomorrow, but when he tries to imagine what he’d do, Yuuri sees nothing but a black and cold void, so profoundly lonely that he can’t even cry at the idea. This is the truth of his life: he can’t _not_ skate. Yuuri tips his head back, rolling his neck carefully, and thinks back to the practice he just endured; while Yakov was undeniably strict, his instructions did yield a much improved triple lutz (though Yuuri never did manage to reach ten in a row—not even close), as well as a raised-arm double toe loop, which Yuuri had never even tried before (for his efforts, he was immediately informed that the loop was to become a consistently perfect triple by the end of next week).

It hurts to think of Victor and Yuri working together while Yuuri suffers alone, but something inside his poor tired brain starts to push back. _Screw ‘em,_ it says, and Yuuri marvels at this rare and wonderful sighting of the version of himself that has run out of fucks to give.

 _Hello,_ he says. _Been a long time since you were here._

 _You’re too tired to be anxious,_ he imagines the reply from this other Yuuri—one who stands up straighter, who feels lighter on his feet, whose bones are made of invisible steel. _Good riddance to those Russian dickweeds. You’re a better skater than Yuri Plisetsky and you know it._ He _knows it, too; that’s why he was desperate to have Victor coach him._

“I’m miserable,” Yuuri murmurs out loud. “I hate this.”

_We should keep going, just to prove that they were stupid to even try to challenge you. Imagine Victor’s dumb face if you actually won the Grand Prix, with his old coach._

About 85% of Yuuri’s brain knows that this probably isn’t possible, but he’s spent and sore and rather wearily pleased to let this rebellious voice take over for a bit, and Gives-No-Fucks Yuuri has an idea. It’s petty, but when you’ve run out of fucks to give, pettiness is simply cleverness without the veil of social graces. As if bewitched, Yuuri flips over to his music app and exports a song to Instagram using the new Lyric Post feature Phichit told him about. It allows the user to post a link to a song, and a chosen segment of the lyrics where a photograph would normally be; it’s been extremely popular since its launch a few months back, flooding Yuuri’s timeline with his friends’ favourite songs.

And now, it plays host to this:

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Work This Body, by Walk the Moon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDvdyIfF-hM) _

“And I will work this body  
I will burn this flame  
Oh in the dead of night and in the pouring rain  
Yeah I’m a workaholic and I swear, I swear  
Yeah one day I will beat you fair and square.”

 

He doesn’t tag Victor or Yuri Plisetsky. He doesn’t comment or explain; he just puts it out there, a drop into the social ocean, to be swallowed up and forgotten but for a few likes and emoji-filled comments. Yuuri sits back, satisfied in the way one can only be when posting something ridiculously passive-aggressive and vague on the internet. It feels good to say something, even if no one will understand.

That night, he dreams of camera flashes and roaring crowds with ocean-hued eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter turned out slightly shorter than the rest will probably be! But such is the pattern of writing. Also, I document the writing process (including hints sometimes!) over on http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/, so come say hi if you'd like!


	3. This is Pitiful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading, and especially thanks to those who commented; posting a new fic is always nerve-wracking, so it’s incredibly rewarding to know that people like what they see so far.
> 
> As of this chapter, all of the songs that Yuuri and Victor send each other will be gathered in [this playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx), along with being linked in the fic itself, so that's there if you'd like all the music in one place! If you find something you like, do let me know! Finding music for this fic is half the fun. 
> 
> This chapter was finished in a bout of ecstatic guilt after I looked at my grad school schedule, realized that I didn’t actually have enough work yet to fill up the day, and then dove back into writing for pure pleasure, wailing my shame the whole ride down in order to appease the Mythical Gods of Productivity. I’m not a very good hedonist, is what I’m saying.

  
SKATEBLOG.COM NEWS ROUNDUP: Coach Swaps Galore!

Remember last week when we told you that Yakov Feltsman had disappeared from his home rink just as the training season had begun in earnest? Well, a tipster from Hasetsu has confirmed what many people had speculated: Yakov has been spotted at the Yu-topia Hot Springs, home of Japanese figure skater Yuuri Katsuki, and the two of them have been photographed (see below) at the Ice Castle Rink. That’s right: Feltsman is Katsuki’s coach, leaving his skaters in the hands of his associate coaching team this season. While the St. Petersburg skating community had been working towards a more diversified coaching setup, it seems that the plan has been put into place sooner than everyone expected, and no one knows exactly how it will affect Russia’s scores yet.

Between this major upset and Victor Nikiforov’s initial declaration that he would coach Katsuki a few months ago, one has to wonder exactly what the Russians see in Our Man From Japan. With Victor taking the lead in coaching Yuri Plisetsky, this season is definitely going to be the most dramatic one yet!

  
_ Comments: (180) _

**DeanWinchesterSpecial:** What the fuck? Can he even do that? Why would he abandon Mila and Yuri and Georgi?

 **Betty35:** I heard that Victor paid Yakov to go coach Katsuki as a consolation prize for him being such a failure. Did you SEE the Hot Springs on Ice videos? Jesus.

 **HeWasAnIceSk8erBoy:** I think Victor’s had a mental break or something. He’s screwing up EVERYONE’s chances this year! Why couldn’t he have just kept skating?

 **~*YurisAngel*~:** He’s gonna make Yuri do so well, tho! His choreography is sooooooo good

 **Anonymous:** This year is gonna be a fukkin trainwreck lol

  
~

While at college in Detroit, Yuuri once asked a counsellor what possible evolutionary good anxiety could serve, and she replied with one word: creativity. Anxiety is an outgrowth of creativity; in both cases, a person is capable of quickly thinking outside the box, in ways that others wouldn’t consider. Yuuri is certainly able to race through multiple possible scenarios before an event actually happens, and it happens so quickly that it sometimes feels as though he has a sixth sense. Anxious about a situation’s outcome, Yuuri will obsessively prepare himself for the worst case, in a round of magical thinking which postulates that if he does all the emotional labour ahead of time, assuming the worst and secretly hoping for the best, then the situation will resolve itself happily. It makes for a paranoid, superstitious existence—a particularly difficult mental framework to handle when you’re also an optimist at heart. And also a very, very easy way to completely screw yourself over.

Yuuri wakes up the next day with a beautifully ridiculous idea in his head. An outlandish, hilariously irrational idea that is too silly to be real, the kind of thing that only happens in movies. The kind of thing he really definitely does _not_ want to happen, no sir: _What if Victor saw my lyric and responded somehow?_

Oh, it’s delicious, that thought. It takes up residence in his chest as a little fluttery moth of possibility, at which Yuuri rolls his eyes as he gets dressed. _That’s not a thing that happens, you idiot._

It would be so good, though. For Victor to be at home, maybe sprawled on a couch with Makkachin, scrolling through Instagram on his phone, and he would see Yuuri’s lyric post and it would make his heart ache for a reason he couldn’t quite name, and he’d feel _so bad_ for the rest of the day.

 _But it’s not going to happen,_ Yuuri firmly reminds himself as he jogs to the Ice Castle. It’s starting to feel like he’s nagging, but the little possibility moth is getting more frantic. Yuuri can feel himself buzzing with a particular type of nervous energy that he has learned to dread; it’s the feeling that immediately precedes the worst types of correct predictions.

Yuuri tries valiantly to resist the urge to check social media, but he breaks just as he reaches the rink. He makes himself wait until he’s laced up his skates before pulling up Instagram, and he scrolls down a few times before—there. Victor’s username. The moth strikes against Yuuri’s ribcage— _yesyesyesyesyesyes!—_ but then he pulls up the song and reads the excerpt that Victor has posted:

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Pistols at Dawn, by Seinabo Sey](https://youtu.be/KovrJ8HXI1Q)     _**6h ago  
** “Can't help but wonder what you thought I would do  
Lay down and play dead? Boy, you know that ain't true  
This is me reaching and you wanting to run  
Stand down or showdown baby let's get this done

You looking at me; me looking at you  
We could've had it all, a world of our own  
I never thought we could be pistols at dawn.”

 

_Shit fuck god damn it I hate it when I’m right._

The song is soulful and forlorn, with a deep-voiced singer who drenches every line with regret. The piano and bass lines are both low and percussive, making Yuuri aware of the pulse in his temple; the percussion line itself includes a gunshot sound effect just before the chorus kicks in, and every time it happens Yuuri flinches involuntarily. A shiver ripples through his entire body as he rereads the lyrics; they're so... _resigned_. There's a finality to them that makes the bile rise in his throat _. We could have had it all—_ that line in particular sends a spear of pain through Yuuri’s forehead. Victor feels bad, all right, but it’s all wrong and has looped back to Yuuri and made it excruciatingly clear who is at fault.

Yuuri starts to feel lightheaded and he knows he should stop rereading the post, but he can't; it’s becoming a mantra, a musical Chinese Water Torture that pushes him closer and closer towards total dark mania.

 _I should stop,_ he tells himself, as he hits the Repeat button. The horrible Gollum-like version of himself that thrives on panic is starting to take over, and it wants to listen again and again and again, because the pain is delicious and deserved. Yuuri thinks of self-flagellating monks and cat o’nine tail whips and, for some weird reason, Kevin Hart in whiteface playing an albino monk in that dumb _Epic Movie_ spoof, and how the fuck does Yuuri even _know_ about that—

“Time to get on the ice, kid!” Yakov, glorious Comrade Yakov, whose voice could anchor a thousand panicking ships. Yuuri shakes his head a few times to clear his thoughts, although he knows it won’t do much good; his limbs feel cold and numb as he stashes his phone in his jacket pocket and heads out to skate his first few laps.

Yakov wants to work on choreography today. He has decided to keep Yuuri’s short program largely intact, acknowledging the obvious fact that choreography by Victor Nikiforov will win some serious points at the Grand Prix. For Yuuri’s free skate, Yakov has chosen an edited version of Tchaikovsky’s [Slavonich March in B-Flat Minor](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzvEChIjwUE); there was no discussion or option provided, and Yuuri already knows better than to try to protest. The choreography reflects the piece itself, which tells the story of the Serbo-Turkish War—more specifically, of the Russians rallying behind the Serbs when the latter thought all was lost. Unfortunately this means that Yuuri must attempt to put himself into the role of a Russian, and their relationship to national identity can be charitably described as “complicated.”

However difficult it is to embody the nationalism and pride of a completely different culture, it's even more impossible when you're also obsessively recalling lyrics in your head and becoming more and more wound up with every repetition. Yuuri tries as hard as he can to pay attention to the movements Yakov is calling out, but most of his mental energy is fuelling the exhaustive process of a complete and total meltdown. It’s all he can do to keep from losing focus, and he fights desperately to retain a semblance of control as his imagination batters him with a rapid-fire onslaught of horrible thoughts, like bullets exploding from a machine gun.

 _Flash_ . _Last year’s banquet. Yuuri is grinding against Victor, groin rubbing against thigh as if they’re teenagers on a date. Victor looks around desperately, silently pleading for someone to save him from this drunken assault; but the Bystander Effect, combined with a general disgust for Yuuri, has frozen everyone in place._

“Now, this portion will be a triple-single-triple combination, yes?” Yakov is saying. “You _can_ do a single salchow, right?” Yuuri jerks his head up and down in a violent approximation of a nod.

_Flash. Victor sees the video of Yuuri skating to “Stay Close to Me,” Victor’s own award-winning combination. He feels pity for the poor little slob, the pathetic wannabe who got into the Grand Prix by fluke and doesn’t even realize how bad he is at everything. Victor, spurred by this pity, tries to make Yuuri his project, because Victor is a kind person and Yuuri is exactly the sort of toxic black hole of attention that kind people eventually stop trying to fix._

_Flash. Yuuri sprawls across the ice during his Eros performance, and the crowd recoils, but soon the giggles start to spread as they watch him try to salvage a scrap of dignity that never existed in the first place. Victor turns to Yurio and shrugs, resigned. “You were right,” he admits. He watches Yuuri stumble off the ice and into the change rooms, stares down the hallway for just one minute more, and then turns back. “Let’s go home.”_

“Katsuki! Stop daydreaming and focus! I want you to remember this arm position, and I’m only going to show you once—”

_Flash. Victor talks with a therapist afterwards, in the cold blue light of a St. Petersburg morning, reflecting on the bullet he’s dodged. But he’s still kind, so he sends Yakov, because Yuuri has never been properly trained, and Victor is a real fucking adult who does nice things for other people and never worries about it because—_

“Katsuki! You’re—”

 _Flash_ . _Yuuri is at this year’s upcoming Grand Prix. He walks through the doors of the arena, and there are reporters everywhere, and Victor and Yurio stand at the other end of the red carpet, glorious and composed. Victor sees Yuuri, and they make eye contact; Yuuri holds his head high, nods politely in acknowledgement, and then—_ God _—Victor starts laughing—_

 _Please stop,_ Yuuri begs.

_Flash. He flubs the combination jump at the Hot Springs on Ice._

_Flash. He’s humping Victor’s leg like a dog._

_Flash. All of Hasetsu is laughing at him._

“KATSUKI!”

Yuuri’s attention crashes back into the present just in time for him to see the arena’s plexiglass wall right in front of him, and he skids to a stop just in time to avoid smacking face-first into the heavy plastic. He slides down the wall to sit on the ice, arms dangling between his knees, and tries desperately to stop hyperventilating.

Movement in his peripheral vision prompts Yuuri to look up, only to find himself face to face with Yakov, kneeling in front of him, with a face so eerily calm that it almost looks like the worst puppet imaginable.

“I don’t know what your problem is today,” Yakov says quietly, “but I am giving you one hour to get your fucking head together, at which point you will be back on this ice, ready to work like a professional. Am I understood?” Yuuri manages to nod, and Yakov’s face contorts with disgust. “Good. Now get out of my sight.”

He doesn’t have to ask twice. Yuuri scrambles out and away, throws on some skate guards and his warmup jacket, and goes to the change room sauna; he doesn’t turn on the steam, but just squeezes himself into a corner and wraps his arms around his knees. Surrounded by the scent of cedar and the calming low light, Yuuri surrenders control and lets the remaining waves of panic hit him. It’s somehow easier to bear when he’s not trying to fight it. The one good thing about gigantic panic attacks is that they’re a raging inferno, and eventually infernos run out of fuel.

The blood eventually stops rushing through his ears, and Yuuri realizes he can hear a mumbling noise from his pocket—it’s his phone, still repeating “Pistols at Dawn.” _I must have forgotten to make sure it was paused before I hit the ice._ He pulls his phone out and unlocks it, and the screen displays Victor’s Instagram post, just as he left it. This time, drained of panic, Yuuri looks again and realizes something that makes him smack his head against the sauna wall in frustration.

 _Victor never actually tagged you, you fucking moron. I mean, duh, obviously he didn’t tag anyone at all, but seriously, you just had a hysterical meltdown over_ NOTHING _. You projected like hell and spun yourself up over some song lyrics, just because Victor used a ridiculously popular social media feature. Come on, Yuuri. This is sad._

Yuuri finds that he’s nodding. It is sad, he is sad, and his behaviour is pathetic. Normally this sort of negative self-talk would make him feel even worse, but in the aftermath of a panic attack all of his emotion circuits have been completely blown out and he floats on a strange muffled sense of rationality.

_It’s just lyrics. You’re overly dramatic._

Yuuri wants to post something else; he pauses for a fraction of a second, worried about what might happen if Victor sees it, but the thought conjures a surge of anger which propels him forward. Having a panic attack is not the end of the world; only Yakov actually knows that it just happened, and he doesn’t know why. Yuuri can recover from this and go out into the world without anyone knowing just how weak he is. It’s one thing to be insane in private, but it’s entirely another to let Victor’s mere presence stop Yuuri from posting whatever the fuck he wants online. And right now, he wants to post a vague but meaningful glimpse into just how much mental illness sucks.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post_ _–_[Spank, by The Naked and Famous](https://youtu.be/swjFg99mMCo)  
“This is bigger than me  
This is in my fear  
This is pitiful  
I just disappear  
Swells up all around me  
Swallowed up inside  
Sell my senses if it  
Would make this subside.”

 _**Comments** _ **:  
** @katsukiyuuri: Anxiety.

 

Yuuri spends the next thirty minutes stretching gently, trying to limber himself up for a proper return to the ice. He’s deep into a hamstring stretch when he hears some shuffling:

“Yuuri?”

He looks up. It’s one of the Nishigori triplets—Axel, he’s pretty sure, but it’s almost impossible to tell them apart. She’s holding Yuko’s iPhone in one chubby hand.

Yuuri smiles. “Hey. What’s up?” He nods to the phone. “Any good gossip?”

Axel’s cheeks reflect a bit of the iPhone’s bright screen as she scrolls. “The blogs are reporting that Victor and Yurio have chosen a free skate piece,” she mumbles, deep in concentration, “but the Yuri Angels don’t think it’s a very good choice.”

Yuuri keeps his face as neutral as possible and makes a noncommittal noise. Axel’s face lights up.

“But! Victor’s been posting lyrics, and people are wondering if he’s picking music for next year’s season. Though the latest one...” Axel makes a thumbs down and blows a raspberry.

“Really? I—I thought it could have been interesting,” Yuuri replies, switching legs and priding himself in acting as if he’s got his shit together in front of a six-year-old. “It was very...emotional. Pistols at Dawn.”

“What? No, not that one,” Axel chides him with the enviable sass of a child who has not yet discovered the concept of crushing insecurity or doubt. “The other one. It’s newer.”

“...oh. Cool?”

She rolls her eyes. “Yuuri, you need to check Instagram more. Jeez.”

Yuuri waits until she’s toddled out of sight before obeying her command, pulling up Instagram and scrolling a bit. It’s only been half an hour, so not much has changed, but there are several Lyric Posts in a row.

  
@christophe-gc: _Lyric Post –[Shoop, by Salt-n-Pepa](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vaN01VLYSQ)     _**5m ago  
** “Ummm, you're packed and you're stacked 'specially in the back  
Brother, wanna thank your mother for a butt like that!”

 

@phichit+chu: _Lyric Post –[Really Don’t Care, by Demi Lovato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOEeN9NmyU8)_      **13m ago  
** “But even if the stars and moon collide  
I never want you back into my life  
You can take your words and all your lies  
Oh, oh, oh, I really don't care.”

 _**Comments:  
**_ @phichit+chu: Locked and loaded next time I go through a breakup!

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –_[Bones of an Idol, by The New Pornographers](https://youtu.be/HAhwy3Juzzc)     **22m ago  
** “You hold up the cup  
You've been searching for  
Since you were young  
When you still had the bones of an idol  
If you still had the bones of an idol  
You'd be long long gone;  
But something keeps turning you on. ”

 

_...huh._

Axel is right; the song isn’t a good choice for a skating routine. The tempo is all wrong, and the beat is just a hair on the side of plodding, which tends to make a performance jerky instead of fluid. That’s not to say it’s not a good song; it’s very nice, and compellingly orchestrated. For the second time that day, Yuuri finds himself rereading a set of lyrics again and again, only this time it’s slower and more curious. He feebly tries to be rational, to tell himself that a set of lyrics is not a direct line into Victor’s head, that there’s absolutely no guaranteed correlation between what one posts online and what’s happening in real life, and that the Lyric Post feature is just meant to showcase songs people like and nothing more.

_While Rational Lawyer Yuuri’s comments are noted by the court, we’re just going to go ahead and attribute meaning anyway because fuck you. Let’s Da Vinci Code the shit out of this._

First, and most obvious, “bones of an idol.” Yuuri can’t read that and _not_ think of Victor; the man’s been his idol since childhood. “Cup” brings to mind trophies and shining gold awards held high in triumph. “If you still had the bones of an idol you’d be long long gone”—is this supposed to refer to how Yuuri’s never won anything? If he had, would he have stopped? Are the bones meant to be Yuuri’s own—the source of his inspiration, maybe? His inner drive and passion?

 _This is not about you btw_ squeaks Rational Lawyer Yuuri, who’s been reduced to the size of a cricket and locked in a cage. Easy to ignore, and well worth ignoring, because that last line...that last line burns itself into Yuuri’s brain.

_But something keeps turning you on._

_Something keeps turning you on._

Something.

The obvious thing.

 _Victor_.

Except, no. The Victor Epoch is over, and Yuuri needs to get used to that fact. His skating career is never going to be the same—not that there’s going to be much more of a career for him after this year, but still. Thinking about Victor Nikiforov used to conjure excitement, thrills, terrified anticipation, admiration, an aching sense of desire to be even a fraction as talented—hundreds of shades of emotional arousal. Now all that Yuuri can think of is pain and shame and anger.

_Something keeps turning you on._

It can’t be Victor. It’s no longer allowed to be Victor.

So what is it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments and kudos always appreciated! I post updates on the writing process and reblog a lot of Victuuri goodness over on [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/); asks are open!


	4. I Made a Mistake in My Life Today

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my beta editor, Lalalascivious, who suggested a POV switch when I felt hopelessly stuck on this chapter. As soon as I sat down to write it, the entire thing fell into place perfectly.
> 
> All the music can be found in [this playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx), as well as individual links in the chapters.

Yuuri thought that trying to seduce a beautiful Russian skating idol was embarrassing. He thought that telling the aforementioned idol that his own concept of erotic love was tied to pork cutlet bowls was embarrassing. He even thought that failing spectacularly in front of the aforementioned idol, as well as his entire hometown, was embarrassing. He was wrong on all of these counts.

All of those memories are humiliating and haunting, but they can’t possibly hold a candle to the thought of performing the Eros short program for Yakov Feltsman.

It’s nearly June. Yuuri has been training with Yakov for about a month, mostly focusing on improving minuscule elements of jumps he already knows how to do; it’s only been recently that they’ve started working on choreography for most of a day. The arena is empty except for the two of them, and this time Yuuri is wearing a sweater and workout pants instead of a glittering gender-bending costume, but he feels no less exposed as the music begins. When it comes time to shimmy and cast a seductive look over at the coach’s area during the introduction, Yuuri can’t bring himself to do it; instead, he just moves his shoulders as clinically as possible and looks determinedly at a random spot on the wall behind Yakov’s hat. He hesitates for a moment, expecting to hear a gruff shout; when they do work on his routines, Yakov will stop Yuuri constantly to correct some tiny imperceptible flaw, and then they’ll start again from the top. But no such interruption occurs, so Yuuri moves on to the step sequence. Ever since the Hot Springs on Ice, this portion of the routine has felt bizarre, as if his legs are far too thin and spindly; he keeps expecting to trip over himself, and it’s disorienting to find his feet obeying him now after the betrayal he endured.

“Is that what Nikiforov thinks seduction should look like?” comes Yakov’s call, right on cue. Yuuri slides to a stop.

“No, Coach.”

“Put some fucking fluidity into the movements. We go from the top.”

Yuuri takes the ice in his beginning pose, and—again—he turns his head as neutrally as possible in the rough direction of the coach’s area and curses Victor Nikiforov for his stupid sexy choreography.

“Stop!” Yakov hits the remote and the music dies just as the strings kick in.

Yuuri gulps. _Damn it, I’m caught._ “What is it?” He looks over to see Yakov with his index finger pressed against his mouth, eyes narrowed in thought.

_This is it. Here it comes. I’m about to be told to entrance an old Russian man using my alluring feminine sexuality. This is where sex drives go to die._

“Make a wider arc with your arms after you’ve pulled them around your head,” Yakov says. “You’ve done ballet, yes? Like second position—keep your elbows up.”

“...that’s it?” _Okay, or not._

Here comes the sneer. “What, do you want me to keep going? I’ll keep going. Your wrists are as limp as a wrinkled old cock and your trailing leg is _still_ sloppy on that camel spin.”

 _I suppose I deserved that._ “Yes, Coach.”

Yakov huffs. “We have much work to do and very little time. Perhaps it’s time to step up the pace.”

 _  
_ **(Three hours later)**

“Again.”

Yuuri stops and crumples over, hands braced on thighs, breathing hard. “Yakov, I—”

“—It’s ‘Coach.’ You can use my name once you’ve won something worth a damn. _Again._ ”

Even when he was out of shape, Yuuri never felt this worn out. He wonders briefly if Yakov is trying to kill him; it would allow for a quicker return to Russia where he belonged, and it would remove some competition to ensure Yurio’s dominance over the Grand Prix. But as much as Yuuri feels like he might keel over, he finds that he’s always got just enough energy to keep going; other skaters might have been grateful for this ability, but it just means that Yuuri has no excuse to stop even when every atom in his body is screaming for a reprieve.

He lets himself have one more breath before taking off around the ice; gathering speed, he turns around, squares his centre of gravity, and throws himself into the air. He counts his revolutions: one, two, three, f— _oof_. Down onto the ice for the seventh time in a row, right in front of an impassive Yakov.

“Again.”

“If you would just—”

Yakov turns bright red. “AGAIN!” he screams.

Yuuri gingerly pulls himself to his feet. He repeats the same movements he’s been doing for the past few hours: gather speed, flip around, pray to the Skating Gods, and jump. This time, thankfully, he lands solidly, and a smile briefly cracks across his face before he sees Yakov, who’s still seething.

“That was a triple.”

“Yes, but—”

“You told me that you were able to land the quadruple salchow in practice.”

“I’m—”

Yakov gets right up in Yuuri’s face. “I don’t _care_ if you’re tired,” he yells, and Yuuri flinches as a speck of spittle lands on him. “Do the fucking salchow, you pathetic little fraud.”

 _At last, someone who truly gets me,_ Yuuri thinks, rolling his eyes as soon as his back is turned to Yakov. _At least he actually says it out loud instead of being nice out of pity._ He smiles, allowing a brief moment of mental sarcasm: _maybe this could work, the two of us._

When he takes off into the jump, Yuuri can feel that this time the elements have all come together. Sure enough, he lands solidly after four proper rotations. Yakov twirls his finger in a “repeat” gesture, so Yuuri doesn’t bother stopping for feedback and goes in for another attempt.

_...wait, am I hardwired to respond to abuse? Am I that nuts?_

He tries again, and—nails it. Twice in a row. _Oh, god, I am. I am that nuts._

Three times does not prove the charm, and Yuuri lands hard on his hip again. When he tries to move, he hisses in pain, and it takes about two seconds for Yakov to reach him, sliding expertly across the ice in his leather derbies. He kneels down and swats Yuuri’s arm away, resting one hand each on the top and bottom of his outer thigh, and inquisitively presses down on his joints in a surprisingly gentle manner. Yuuri, too shocked to protest, watches as Yakov carefully rotates his leg with expert precision and clinical detachment; to his relief, he doesn’t feel any of the terrifying spikes of pain which signal a potentially career-ending injury.

“Not broken or sprained,” Yakov concludes, “but you’re done for the day. Soak your leg in the baths, lots of heat, you understand? Then a cold pack for twenty minutes, then heat overnight.” He pauses. “What?”

Yuuri realizes he’s cocked his head like a confused pug. “N-nothing. I just...” he looks down at his leg.

Yakov grunts again, more annoyed this time. “Injured skaters are a waste of talent. Better to rest now; you’ll be fine tomorrow, and we’ll pick up where we left off.” And with that he walks off, back towards the rink opening, as casually as if he’s walking on stone.

  
**St. Petersburg**

Be careful what you wish for.

It’s a shame that those six words in that specific order have become so clichéd that they fade into the background noise of everyday life, because the sentiment is painfully, infuriatingly right.

Be careful what you wish for; it might come true.

For instance, maybe you wish to begin figure skating. You can sense the talent inside of you, the way your body sways and muscles imperceptibly flex to mimic the champions you see on TV, the way you know—you don’t hope, you _know_ —that you can do everything that they can do, if someone will teach you. You wish to explode the jumps and spins into their dozens of constituent parts, study every angle and position, and solve each one like a puzzle. To click it all into place. To make it as easy and as natural as breathing.

Maybe you get your wish, and are asked to come to St. Petersburg and train under one of Russia’s all-time best coaches. Your grandfather drives you to the airport on a dark and frigid Tuesday; you grab your bag from the trunk, close the door, give a brief wave, and walk into the terminal. You don’t see him again for nearly three years.

Maybe you realize that you’re sharing the ice with _the_ Victor Nikiforov, and you work your way up through the merciless grind of training, all the while wishing to be even half as good as Victor. You wish, more than anything, to impress him—to prove that this is your calling, and that there will never be anyone like Yuri Plisetsky for the rest of time, the same way there will never be anyone like Victor. As you start competing in earnest, you begin raking in trophies and awards and high scores, and Victor remains out of reach—the god at the other end of the ice. Until maybe one day you’re sitting on the edge of the rink, loitering like the teenager you are; you watch Victor do jumps, casually analyzing the flow and shape of his body the way you do with every skater you meet, and just as Victor lands a quad salchow suddenly the truth hits you like a brick to the head: you’re going to be a better skater than Victor Nikiforov.

Be careful what you wish for.

This realization doesn’t change anything. Only you know it, and there’s no way to prove it except to keep going, to keep improving, to break every movement apart into even smaller pieces and adjust every muscle and hair and eyelash until every element of your skating is perfect. Your performances become a blur of puzzle pieces clicking together, your body transformed into a many-jointed marionette.

You keep working. The Junior World Championships approach, lain before you as your birthright. Winning gold will be almost too easy; only half of the competing skaters have more than two triples in their programs, whereas you have four apiece. You’re the oldest of the bunch; next year you will be a Senior skater, leaving the children behind at last.

One day, just before the championships begin, maybe you decide to go for a quadruple salchow instead of a triple; you know you’re ready. You land it, but Yakov is furious, and he begins to yell something at you while you lounge in the kiss and cry—you’ve learned to tune him out, and do something useful like blow your nose instead. But maybe a sound strikes through the fuzzy muddle of Yakov’s tirade: clapping. And then: Victor’s voice.

“Yakov! You should praise him more,” he beams, leaning over the stairway railing. Yakov bristles.

“Don’t butt in! It’s none of your business!”

You’re frozen in place, tissue still wrapped around your nose, as Victor looks directly at you for the first time. “I used to get scolded for doing that, too,” he says with a grin, as if letting you in on a little secret. Then he says something ridiculous: “You can win, even without quads. I’d bet money on it. You can win the Junior World Championships.”

And just like that, your wish has come true, and you’ve still got a little snot at the corner of one nostril. Victor Nikiforov has seen you skate, and he’s impressed. Nirvana achieved.

Except maybe that’s not good enough. Maybe, in that split second, you remember your epiphany from months or years ago. Maybe you realize that you have another wish, one buried so deep inside yourself that you’ve never known about it until this very instant. Maybe this wish is so strong, and so primal, that you’re halfway through blurting it out before you even realize you opened your mouth:

“Okay, if I win without quad jumps, then choreograph a program just for me!”

Maybe you want to curl up in a ball and die.

But maybe Victor smiles, reaching a hand down over the railing, which you shake. “Sure,” he says. “When you win the Junior World Championship, come see me. I’ll give you the best senior debut ever.”

With a Nikiforov-choreographed debut as prize, there’s no question; you win first place at Juniors, just as you knew you would. Watching the Senior Men’s award ceremony at the Grand Prix that year, you see Victor take his fifth consecutive gold medal, and maybe you realize with dread that you’ll be competing with him next year. Maybe part of you wishes that Victor would sit next year out, to give you the debut you know you deserve; but you remember his promise, and you figure that it will all work out.

Then training for next season begins—and Victor is nowhere to be found.

Be careful what you wish for.

Maybe you track him down to Japan, where he’s gone out of his fucking mind and decided to coach the pitiful little Japanese piggy who came in last place at the GP—the other Yuuri. Victor’s forgotten about the promise he made. He’s forgotten about you.

Maybe you wish for him to feel as miserable as you do right now.

But then Victor proposes a deal that’s almost hilariously biased towards one side: a skating competition. Victor will choreograph the short programs for both you and the other Yuuri, and he’ll coach the one who wins. It’s perfect.

On the day of the Hot Springs on Ice, you feel taller, stronger, more talented than you ever have before. The program components play to your strengths, just as you knew they would, and you’re confident even though you’re saddled with the lamest theme imaginable. You genuinely don’t know how to evoke platonic love in a skating routine, but you’ve decided to give it your best shot. You try to remember your grandfather as the routine begins, but midway through you slip back into your old habits, clicking the puzzle pieces together, because every part of this situation feels wrong. For the first time in your life, you finish a routine and want to cry; but even so, you finish perfectly, every element executed with pristine talent.

You watch the Japanese pig take the ice to trundle his way through seduction (which, seriously, what the fuck, _Victor?_ ), and you can’t help but notice the way Victor looks at him. When Yuuri casts a shy-but-alluring look over at the coach’s area, you have to stop yourself from shrieking in rage because Victor fucking _wolf whistles._

Maybe you start to worry that this won’t be such an easy win after all. But then the crowd hisses in that special way, only heard when an expert is publicly failing at his art, and you turn back to the ice just in time to see Yuuri Katsuki flub a quadruple salchow. He skates so awkwardly, and his muscles are so tense; it’s as if he wants to run off, to be anywhere else but here. Maybe you feel a flash of compassion for the pathetic loser, and when he goes for his jump combination you can see the pieces failing to click together and you know what’s going to happen before it happens.

It surprises you how unsatisfying it feels to see Katsuki fall so badly. You feel like maybe it should be a moment of triumph for you, so you force yourself to be pleased until the feeling sticks. After all, you’ve won. You watch as Yuuri runs past you and into the change rooms, tears streaked across his face. Then you see Victor, face carefully neutral, and some new puzzle pieces start falling into place in your head.

Be careful what you wish for.

You both go back to Yu-topia; you pack your belongings, hail a cab, and check in at the airport, and throughout it all Victor doesn’t say a single word. It’s not until the seatbelt sign has _ding_ ’d off that he turns to you and smiles.

“Congratulations,” he says warmly, and you very nearly buy it. “I’m your coach. Let’s go win a gold medal, shall we?”

When the truth hits you this time it’s a whole building’s worth of bricks: Victor never intended to come back with you. You were never supposed to win this competition. This wasn’t supposed to happen, but a promise is a promise.

Be careful what you fucking wish for.

 

_The Grand Prix banquet is a mess of reflections and flashes of light, as the sparkles on dresses and necklaces ping off of champagne flutes, and the polished floor reflects the too-bright lights. Everything is too specific, too distinct, too much. Yuuri stands in this sparkling inferno, a lump of dull coal. There’s a champagne glass in his hand._

_Blink. The lights begin to blur and slide together, ceasing their merciless onslaught and instead becoming a shifting blob of skin tones and yellow wallpaper. Yuuri has two drinks now, which remain in his hands even as he moves to take off his jacket._

_Blink. The world rights itself until the dance floor appears in sharp focus—an angler fish’s lure, entrancing him helplessly to his doom. He’s in his dress shirt now, holding his suit jacket by the collar, but it slips through his fingers and melts into the floor. In his other hand is a bottle of champagne; when Yuuri raises it to his lips, nothing comes out, but the drunken feeling behind his eyes explodes by an order of magnitude nonetheless._

_Blink. Yuuri is wrapped around Victor like a desperate, awkward snake._

“ _After this season ends, my family runs a hot spring resort, so please come. If I win this dance-off...you’ll become my coach, right? Be my coach, Victor!”_

_Blink. The dance floor is now in the middle of the skating arena and the seats are packed with spectators, all holding champagne flutes and watching in shocked horror as Yuuri pleads: “...you’ll become my coach, right?”_

_Blink. He sees his entire family watching on the television in Yu-topia’s main room. “...you’ll become my coach, right?”_

_Blink. “BEEEEE MYYY COOOAAACH!”_

 

BEEP.

Yuuri jolts awake to the sound of his alarm. The details of his dream begin to fade almost immediately, but his heart keeps racing and the feeling of disturbing humiliation and bizarre exhibitionism remains. He grimaces, throwing one arm over his eyes, and flops back onto his pillow, grimacing when he moves his leg too much. His entire thigh is one large bruise.

When he opens his phone, the first thing Yuuri sees is a text from Yakov:

“ _Morning training cancelled. Please warm up gently and stretch your hip; if it hurts to do anything, then don’t do it.”_

Huh.

 _He’s a coach, but he isn’t a monster,_ Yuuri realizes. _He doesn’t want me to get injured and drop out. An injured skater is a waste of talent._

Coaches, even insane Russian ones, don’t try to sabotage a skater’s career _._

On cue, another part of his brain screeches out: _BEEEE MYYY COOOAACH!_

Yuuri buries his face in his hands. _I deleted that photograph, but it will never fucking leave me, will it?_

The silent early morning of Hasetsu has no answer.

With a long sigh, Yuuri pulls up Instagram to make a new post.

 

  
SKATEBLOG.COM EXCLUSIVE: Yuri Plisetsky’s Free Skate 

After much speculation, Victor Nikiforov has confirmed that he has chosen a piece for Yuri Plisetsky’s free skate, which he will choreograph for Plisetsky’s much-anticipated Senior debut. The piece is John Murphy’s “[Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQXVzg2PiZw),” which comes from the 2007 film _Sunshine_. When asked about the reasons behind this choice, Nikiforov had this to say:

“ _Yuri’s short program is 'On Love: Agape,' and depicts the many elements of unselfish, all-encompassing love—the true love for the many things which add together to make a life worth living. It focuses on the joys experienced in a single life; the Adagio, in contrast, will explore what it is to turn selflessness into sacrifice, to give of your love instead of to take, and to rip yourself apart in order to save everything you know. Much like the film for which it was composed, Yuri’s free skate will find beauty at the end of the world and peace within the Void.”_

Nikiforov’s ambitious goals for this piece also feed into Yuri’s theme for this year, which is “Selflessness.” With such uniquely emotional pieces and the five-time Grand Prix champion showing him the ropes, we’re confident that Plisetsky will be able to pull it off.

  
_ Comments (46):  _

**brokeniphone:** Ugh, that fucking movie. It’s the worst, it just turns into a stupid slasher film in the end with no warning. Bullshit.

 **Betty35:** oh god not you people again. You don’t *get* Sunshine if you think the ending comes out of nowhere. It’s carefully telegraphed the whole time, if you just pay attention.

 **AN0NYM0USE:** WHO ARE YOU CALLING “YOU PEOPLE?”

 **brokeniphone:** Who are YOU calling “you people??” LOL

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –_ _[Slow Show, covered by Coeur de Pirate](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-LcYYE0V9k)    _ **3h ago**

“Standing at the punch table swallowing punch  
Can't pay attention to the sound of anyone  
A little more stupid, a little more scared  
Every minute more unprepared

I made a mistake in my life today  
Everything I love gets lost in drawers  
I want to start over, I want to be winning  
Way out of sync from the beginning.”

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Get Good, by Vanessa Carlton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOZtZdwXKAI)    _ **1m ago**

“Put your velvet on the moonlight  
Or have you lost your constellation eyes?  
Well, you could give it time  
I wish I could be there  
Wish I could make it right  
  
Don't you worry, you'll soon be on the mend  
That's no trick, that flicker of radiance  
And you'll feel lucky, darling, I'm sure of it  
You'll figure it out...and get good again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you know that four out of five fanfic doctors recommend a healthy diet of kudos and comments to keep your friendly neighbourhood authors thriving? It's true! And that fifth doctor is the same weirdo who always disagrees with the dentists in those commercials, so who even knows what's up with him.


	5. You're Getting Stronger While I Sleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, readers. This chapter felt like it took approximately forever, possibly because the last week has felt like a month. I struggled a lot because it's one of the more transitory chapters in the fic, consisting as it does of time skips, but we're careening ever closer to scenes I've already written which are just *incredibly* delicious and I can't wait to share with you. That said, I still ended up liking this, and I think you will too.
> 
> As always, the full playlist of songs Yuuri and Victor send can be found in this [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx), as well as linked individually throughout the chapter!

**(Late June)**

  
1 (17.5k) **I’m Victor Nikiforov and I’m on my second bottle of vodka. AMA.**

199 comments  
sorted by: best ↓

[-] nikiforov  _22 points  1 hour ago_  
See attached photo for proof.  
  


[-] tillerskate  _344 points  1 hour ago_  
How’s coaching life treating you?  
      [-] nikiforov   _22 points  1 hour ago_  
      Super good, mostly. It’s nice to order other people around for a change.  
  


[-] likelyLogan   _899 points  58 minutes ago_  
Are you actually a Vanessa Carlton fan?  
      [-] nikiforov   _22 points  57 minutes ago_  
      She’s a talented lady. I have a wide range of musical preferences!  
           [-] likelyLogan   _899 points  57 minutes ago_  
           That’s cool. Anyone in particular you’re into right now?  
                [-] nikiforov   _22 points  56 minutes ago_  
                Musically? I’m really enjoying Walk the Moon’s latest album.  
  


[-] SilverDangle__969  _2 points  50 minutes ago_  
What’s Christophe Giacometti like in real life? Is he super awesome?  
      [-] nikiforov  _22 points 49 minutes ago_  
      Nice try, Chris.  


[-] Honest-Sugar  _342 points  47 minutes ago_  
Hey Victor, I don’t know if you remember me but I threw you a big poodle-shaped plushie at the end of the Worlds finals last year and you thanked me personally, and I just wanted to say that it was super cool to meet you and you just seem like a neat person. :shyface:  
      [-] nikiforov  _22 points  45 minutes ago_  
      Of course I remember you. I still have that plushie, too. ;-)  
  


[-] 2ripeboo   _58 points  35 minutes ago_  
Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck or a hundred duck-sized horses?  
     [-] nikiforov   _22 points  33 minutes ago_  
     A hundred duck-sized horses. How is this even a debate?  
  


[-] GrovelWhiskers  _165 points  30 minutes ago_  
What would you be if you hadn’t been a figure skater?  
     [-] nikiforov   _22 points  29 minutes ago_  
     A cosmonaut or a sushi chef.  
  


[-] Coherent__Tart  _199 points  22 minutes ago_  
What’s your opinion of Yakov going to coach Yuuri Katsuki? Is it awkward?  
     [-] nikiforov  _22 points  20 minutes ago_  
     Not at all. Coaches and skaters swap all the time; when I was 16 I trained briefly with Celestino Cialdini, who was Yuuri’s coach last year. Yakov was presented with a unique opportunity, and he took advantage of it. It’s surprising, but surprising is the best thing you can be.  
          [-] Coherent__Tart   _199 points  18 minutes ago_  
          Is the rest of the Russian team not furious to have lost their coach, though? You’re only coaching Yuri Plisetsky, how does that work for everyone else?  
               [-] nikiforov   _22 points  17 minutes ago_  
               Yakov was never the only coach at the arena; there have always been associate coaches who do most of the work in terms of drills and rehearsals. This year they’re doing the same stuff, and I’m overseeing a few choreography things here and there when people want my advice. It’s not really a big deal. If you ever go to a hospital, it’s the nurses who do like 99% of the work and then the doctors show up and step in if necessary. Same principle applies, really; this year the nurses get to take the lead, so to speak.  
  


[-] Speedy_Flamingo_9  _74 points  15 minutes ago_  
Do you wish you’d stayed in Japan?  
     [-] nikiforov  _22 points  13 minutes ago_  
     The food was really great! If you’re ever in Hasetsu I definitely recommend, like, every single restaurant, basically.  
  


[-] Cleverusername666  _33 points  10 minutes ago_  
Leeroy Jenkins?  
     [-] nikiforov  _22 points  9 minutes ago_  
     LEEROY JENKINS.  
  


[-] Quad_Axel_  _642 points  7 minutes ago_  
I assume you won’t answer this but fuck it. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ What’s the deal with you and Yuuri Katsuki?  
     [-] nikiforov   _22 points  2 minutes ago_  
     Yuuri is a super talented skater, and I’m glad he’s getting the direction of an expert like Yakov. It sucks to be all alone, no matter what you’re doing. I look forward to seeing him compete at the Grand Prix this year.

 

Yuuri didn’t think it was possible to want to scream until you throw up, but here he is, stopped dead on the Hasetsu bridge while going home from training, shaking with rage and humiliation that is about 10% due to Reddit’s shitty mobile interface and 90% due to the content he’s just read.

Fucking Victor.

 _How dare he._ _How fucking_ dare _he pity me!?_

A bicycle whizzes by, its rider ringing the bell, and Yuuri flattens himself against the bridge railing to avoid being trampled. He stares after the rider, but doesn’t recognize him. _Is that one of your Reddit buddies, you obnoxious fucking asshole?_ Even though it’s hot outside, Yuuri pulls his hood up over his head and tightens the drawstring as small as it can go. He slinks back to Yu-topia as inconspicuously as possible—he’s the only one on the street wearing a hooded workout jacket, so he pretty much nails it—and prays for the dining area to be empty as he walks in.

“Yuuri!” Minako waves from a low table, where she’s pulled out a bottle of sake.

His relieved exhalation puffs up the hood in front of his face, and he wrestles to remove it. “Hi, Minako-sensei. Watching skating?”

Ever the professional dancer, Minako is very light and swift in her movements, and Yuuri pretends not to notice her hand flying to the remote by her side. “Not at all,” she says smoothly. “I’m watching...the American professional darts championship.”

“Sounds thrilling.”

“It is. Join me?”

He considers it for a moment. “Sure,” he replies, sitting down next to her and removing his glasses so that the television becomes a blur. They sit in silence for roughly thirty seconds before Minako breaks.

“So—”

Yuuri stops her cold with an upraised hand. “Please,” he begs. “Please don’t. I don’t...let’s just watch, okay?”

He turns his body and head back towards the TV and hugs his knees to his chest. He hears Minako pour another serving of sake and knock it back; while she pours another, Yuuri surreptitiously pulls out his phone, and bites his top lip to keep himself from snarling.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Cold War, by Janelle Monae](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqmORiHNtN4)_

"So you think I'm alone?  
But being alone's the only way to be  
When you step outside  
You spend life fighting for your sanity  
  
This is a cold war  
You better know what you're fighting for  
This is a cold war  
Do you know what you're fighting for?"

 

An hour later, his phone pings with a notification, because Yuuri’s a self-loathing idiot and still has notifications turned on, and thus is informed whenever Victor posts something. He has notifications turned on for lots of other people too—Phichit, for instance, and Yuuko’s triplets. All the people he follows. But Yuuri knows it’s _him_ even before his picks up his device.  
  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[You and I, by Colony House](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnw092RbBR0)_      **Just now**

“I'm not scared of fighting  
I'm just a little bit over this conversation  
I'm not trying to hide it  
I'm just thinking slowly  
Maybe you and I could live together if we ever learn to ease the tension  
Maybe the world isn't crazy  
Maybe it's you and I, I, I.”  


And that’s how Yuuri learns the twofold lesson that it’s really best to turn off Instagram notifications unless he’s directly mentioned, and that submersion in a full glass of sake is really bad for smartphones.

  
**(July)**

Living with high-functioning anxiety means navigating a constant minefield of fear; it means avoiding some environments and making extensive use of coping mechanisms when avoidance is impossible. The anticipation of an anxiety trigger can be just as stressful as the anxiety itself, and it becomes a matter of constant vigilance and emergency preparations. There are many, many situations which give Yuuri anxiety, and each day becomes a ticking clock of potential panic—a waiting game of pretending to be normal while constantly wondering if the next moment will be the one to trigger his anxiety and ruin everything. As a result, Yuuri has always been a morning person, because the mornings are the high point of the day; if he can get as much done as possible before the anxiety sets in, then he can bank the time and energy necessary to deal with his mental health if something causes him to crash. Routines and structures make the world less chaotic.

But sometimes, with no warning, Yuuri wakes up with a racing pulse and trembling hands for no discernible reason. Like today.

He opens his eyes just before his alarm goes off, and his heart is pounding so hard that he worries it might kill him. When he tries to walk to the bathroom, he feels bizarrely off-kilter and distant, as though his brain has taken half a step backwards while leaving the rest of his body behind.. Yakov expects him on the ice in one hour.

Yuuri splashes cold water on his face out of habit, but he’s already alert; he couldn’t go back to sleep if he tried. The jog to the Ice Castle is torturous, but he makes it just in time. Yakov is already there, frowning over a cup of coffee. Even though they’ve lived in the same house for several months now, Yuuri has never once managed to catch Yakov’s morning routine; no matter how early he gets up, Yuuri has never seen his coach head to the bathroom to brush his teeth or grab breakfast or even leave the house. It seems like Yakov simply appears at Ice Castle when it’s time to train, like a grumpy Russian fairy.

“You’re on time.” Yakov says this with the exact same inflection as he would say “You’re late,” confirming Yuuri’s theory that this is simply how Yakov sounds all the time. It now makes sense why Yuri Plisetsky is such a sourpuss, if he had to spend most of his childhood around such a bitter man, but Victor’s eternal cheerfulness remains a baffling inconsistency.

 _No._ Yuuri firmly shakes his head as he pulls on his skates. _No thinking about Victor._

His heart is still pounding with anxiety that has no reason or outlet, and Yuuri already knows that it’s going to be a rough day on the ice. The thought of the inevitable failures and falls to come makes him cringe so hard that his shoulders tense up; Yuuri doesn’t think his heart can ache any more, but it starts pounding even harder, and it takes him two attempts to finish lacing his left skate.

_Oh, boy, this is going to be so much fun._

Yuuri circles the ice as a short warmup to the warmup, and then begins doing whatever drill Yakov calls out. The coach likes to switch things up, so Yuuri can never rely on routine; one day he might do several crossover drills followed by counter and rocker turns, and another day might be nothing but moves in the field.

“Today we focus on the free skate,” Yakov announces once Yuuri has warmed up to his liking. “You’ll do it until it’s perfect.”

Yuuri’s very bones seem to cry out in warning, because deep down he instinctively knows that normal practice today is a really bad idea _._ He can see himself trying and failing and getting yelled at all day, and his hands won’t stop trembling. Yuuri feels the tension in his shoulders radiating down his arms and spine, contracting his muscles when they should be loose; the very thought of attempting a quad jump makes him queasy with dread.

 _If I do this, I’m going to fall, and it will be a bad fall._ This isn’t even the anxious sixth sense talking; it’s common sense, deep gut knowledge, the kind you can’t even pretend isn’t true.

In defiance of every instinct he has, Yuuri stays put at the rink entrance and hears himself speak.

“Coach.”

Yakov’s eyes narrow. “What?” It’s not so much a question as a flat statement: _What._

Deep breath. “I need to pace myself today.”

_Yuuri Katsuki, top Japanese figure skater, was brutally murdered by his coach, Yakov Feltsman, using a shoelace and a coffee cup lid; film at eleven._

He expects Yakov to explode with anger, but instead he cocks one bushy eyebrow. “Oh?”

 _YUURI KATSUKI GOT KNEECAPPED FOR RUNNING HIS GODDAMN MOUTH, FILM AT ELEVEN_. “I’m not feeling my best and I don’t want to push myself too hard.” Yuuri distantly marvels at how calm and collected he sounds, because multiple inner versions of himself are pinging around inside his brain, shrieking incoherently and hitting bright red alarm buttons. “I would like to mark the jumps today; I’ll do them fully tomorrow and come in on Saturday for extra practice.”

_Here lies promising skater Yuuri Katsuki, cut down during preparations for the last season of his professional career, done in at last by his stupid, stupid brain and his inability to—wait, why is Yakov nodding?_

“All right,” Yakov agrees, because while Yuuri was freaking out inside his head apparently hell decided to freeze over. “Go.”

Yuuri is too shocked to move. “I...”

Now Yakov returns to the blissfully familiar look of utter annoyance at Yuuri’s very existence. “What are you waiting for? Go!”

He can’t. The curiosity is too much, and the anxiety has exploded his fear circuits again, so there’s nothing to stop Yuuri from blurting out: “You... you’re not going to yell at me for being weak?”

Yakov folds his arms. “Why would I do that?”

“You’ve yelled every other time.” _Yuuri Katsuki flung himself off of Hasetsu’s main bridge this morning after committing seppuku with an ice skate. More on this tragic story after traffic and the weather._

Yakov sighs, long and weary. “I’m only going to say this once, Katsuki: you’re not weak. Don’t look at me like that, you know it’s true. You’re a talented skater, but you’re in your own head far too much; I have no patience for histrionics or daydreaming.”

“...Oh.”

“This is the first time you’ve been honest with me. And also the first time you’ve shown any kind of self-awareness about your abilities as a skater, did you know that?”

Yuuri scans his memories quickly, and son of a bitch, he’s right. “I guess I—”

Yakov shakes his head. “Poor self-esteem is for American teenagers; champions advocate for themselves. Mark the jumps today and focus on your arm placements. Now get the fuck on with it.”

Yuuri obeys, taking position at centre ice and waiting for the Slavonich March to begin. For the first time, he actually looks forward to the choreography, and he manages to get through the entire free skate sequence without being stopped by Yakov once.

And all it took was a three-month critical shortage of fucks to give.

 

_The Grand Prix banquet is full of the citizens of Hasetsu, the people Yuuri has known his entire life. For a quick moment he feels a sense of calm, but then he looks over to see a bottle of champagne in his left hand, and feels his fingers at his neck, loosening his tie. He tries to scream:_

NO—

_Blink. He’s almost entirely naked, and for some reason Christophe is there, equally nearly nude; Yuuri watches as Chris reaches a hand inside his thong and pulls out a full-size stripper pole, which he embeds into the ground._

_Blink. Yuuri is fully clothed again, but upside down, and he’s watching Yurio on the dance floor below, seething so furiously that his blonde hair turns bright neon red._

_Blink. Yuuri is hugging Victor, gleefully slurring his words._

No _, he begs._ Please. Please don’t make me do this. _But it’s happening; he can feel Victor, solid and taut, pressed close in all the right places._ _Someone starts laughing uncomfortably._

_Blink. Yuuri is also standing off to the side, watching the spectacle; he feels two large hands grasp either side of his face as Chris points him at the scene, turns a knob on the side of his skull to pull things into sharper focus, and then pokes the back of his head; Yuuri feels his eyes click shut and realizes that he’s a camera, and now he’ll never see anything but the image of himself and Victor for the rest of his life._

 

BEEP.

Yuuri opens his eyes, closes them, and slams his fist into the mattress with a muffled, frustrated thump.

“No,” he says to himself. “No.”

He sets his alarm to go off again in thirty minutes and dives back into his dreams.

 

_The Grand Prix banquet is a shimmering mirage; it’s actually the Hasetsu Ice Castle, and it’s the day of the Hot Springs On Ice. Yuuri’s costume clings to his skin, so tight it’s barely there, but he doesn’t feel naked—he feels powerful. He walks into the arena and sees Victor’s jaw drop, but brushes past him haughtily. Yurio has just finished his piece, which has filled the skating rink with pure white light; he is an angel in the middle, his long arms like wings, and he doesn’t skate to the rink exit but instead slowly fades away._

_Now it’s Yuuri’s turn._

_As soon as he steps onto the ice, the light vanishes, plunging the rink into velvety darkness—the thick, rich dark in which you reach out for a lover and do all the things you can’t say out loud. As his music begins and the spotlights illuminate him, Yuuri can feel the fullness of his lips, the length of his eyelashes—all the things that make him irresistible. When he shimmies and tosses a look over to the coach’s section, he makes full eye contact with Victor—and time stops._

_Yuuri watches Victor blush, watches his eyes become bright with a combination of lust and yearning, watches him clutch a lightly trembling hand to his heart. Yuuri watches Victor ache for him for as long as he wants, and then with a lick of his lips the world returns to normal and the routine begins in earnest._

_He’s listened to the song so many times that he knows every second: every pluck of the guitar, every clap and flourish. He knows the routine, too, and this time he is perfect; perfectly shaped, perfectly poised, perfectly confident, perfectly seductive. Yuuri pulls off the step sequence as easily as if he was walking leisurely along the street; his spin never makes him dizzy, and with every movement he can feel the crowd drawing closer, their mouths watering for a reason they can’t identify. Women clench their thighs together, toes curling; men gulp, Adam’s Apples bobbing, as their hands drift down to cover their groins. The air is thick with moisture._

_Spread eagle to a triple axel. Yuuri’s skate hits the ice with a definitive, accomplished crack._

_Quadruple salchow. Turning in the air is so easy it feels like it’s a single._

_Quad-triple combination jump. When Yuuri takes off, he feels weightless. He has all the time in the world to complete the rotations, and as he lands he hears the crowd gasp with delight and begin to cheer. As he skates through the final few motions, Yuuri barely feels fatigued; he could keep going, keep seducing them all, turn the entire rink into a writhing mass of Bacchanalian lust. He’s supposed to finish the sequence in the middle of the rink, with his arms wrapped around himself to evoke a lover’s_ _grasp_ _; instead, Yuuri skates over to where Victor is standing, and in the last few seconds of the song he reaches out and grabs Victor’s shirt and yanks him close, until their lips nearly touch, as the music cuts out and the arena plunges into darkness. As the crowd begins to cheer, louder than Yuuri’s ever heard, he looks right into Victor’s eyes, glittering with lust, and confidently shoves him back with just as much force._

I don’t need you, _he mouths, and his voice echoes around the arena as if it were empty._ I don’t want you.

 

BEEP.

This time, when Yuuri opens his eyes, he feels a slow smile spread across his face.

 __  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –_[Yin Yang, by USS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdATpPUKeLw)     **55m ago  
**   
“I got infinite ammunition  
Coming out the yin yang  
I got limitless stealth positions  
Extract the champion.”

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Your Love Could Start a War, by The Unlikely Candidates](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrmgBrIfLcM)_      **5m ago**

The dawn will break before you;  
Under your thumb I’m on my knees  
You play a game of pressure  
You're getting stronger while I sleep  
You're burning up the sky, you're a constellation,  
Swear that I could die in this revelation...”

  
**(August)**

“That mother _fucker._ ”

Yuuri’s hand clenches so hard that his fingers begin to ache. Even though he’s trembling, he can still see the looping Youtube video Victor’s just posted: “Yuri Plisetsky, 4 Quads in a Row.”

It’s exactly what it says on the tin. Yuuri watches the Russian Punk execute a loop, a flip, a toe loop, and a salchow; while the images have been edited together in such a way that it’s clear that he didn’t accomplish them all in one run (that would have been ridiculously difficult even for Victor to pull off), they’re no less impressive. No, impressive isn’t the right word; they’re gorgeous. Effortless. Just fucking goddamn _perfect_ like the little blond robot that he is.

Yuuri bites his bottom lip as he puts his phone in his bag and walks out to the ice. His fury propels him forward of its own accord, carrying him right up to where Yakov is standing; Anxious Yuuri shrieks in terror at what’s about to happen, but Furious Yuuri is currently in control. Yakov opens his mouth to speak, but Yuuri puts up his hand to silence him.

“I want to land every quad possible,” he hears himself say with quiet, steely confidence. “I want to work on them until they’re perfect. I want my routines to be just as complicated as Victor’s used to be.”

For a split second it looks like Yakov might actually smack Yuuri clear across the face, but instead he grins—and, for the first time, Yuuri’s stomach doesn’t drop with anxiety at the sight. “Youtube videos getting a bit under your skin, Katsuki?”

Yuuri keeps his face neutral as he steps out onto the ice and does a quick bracket turn. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Yakov’s eyes glint with amusement and he crosses his arms. “Not like you to get mad at things.”

“What makes you think I’m mad?” Yuuri asks innocently, but he can’t stop one side of his mouth twitching upward. Yakov barks with laughter.

“Plisetsky’s weakest quad is the loop. We begin with that one. Go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shakes tip jar* Won't you spare a student a comment or a kudos? They keep my mind inspired even as grad school ravages my sanity.  
> Seriously, though, your comments are all incredible and they keep me inspired to continue this beast in my off time, between learning about theories and analyzing ridiculously long academic articles. Thank you so much for your support. <3
> 
> I'm on [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/), where I tend to reblog YOI stuff but also talk about the music-finding and writing process of this fic, and soon it'll include behind-the-scenes notes on how I found certain songs for each chapter, so these end notes don't end up ridiculously long.  
> So come say hi, drop an ask, you know the drill ^_^
> 
> And I wasn't kidding earlier, either; I have at least 8500 words of material that takes place later in the story which is already written and edited. I'm not going anywhere, even if grad school slows down my output as the semester goes on. I hope you'll stay with me. :-)


	6. You May Not Understand It, But Something Here is Working

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, readers. Thank you for your patience while my life went wonky for several weeks and I struggled through writer's block that nearly killed this story. As a reward, please enjoy this (somewhat) longer chapter, with more songs!  
> I have to give yet another round of thanks to my beta reader, Lalalascivious, who sat down with me and talked about this thing for a solid hour and a half a few nights ago and finally broke the block. Also, the next two chapters after this one are also basically nearly done, so updates should come a little more frequently for the next little while!
> 
> As always, the full playlist of songs Yuuri and Victor send can be found in this [playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx), as well as linked individually throughout the chapter.

**(Late August)**

Anger is a marvellous thing.

Psychologists call it one of the six basic emotions, if you believe that sort of thing, and it’s avoided and lamented and endured but so rarely _used_ , the way you’d use any other tool. Anger’s overwhelming tides can consume you if you’re trying to stand still against them, but they can propel you forward at an incredible rate if you shed the cultural shunning of anger and just let yourself be carried.

Anger becomes Yuuri’s primary source of fuel for roughly three weeks. He’s able to maintain it like a steady flame, channeling a roaring inferno through a gap just the right size to turn explosion into propulsion. Training, once such an emotionally fraught experience, becomes easier with each passing day, and for the last few weeks of the summer he trains hard. Yuuri’s life becomes a blur of exacting choreography during the day and bizarre dreams at night, as the season draws closer.

The Grand Prix placements are announced. Yuuri is competing in the Cup of China in early November, and then the Rostelecom Cup in Moscow a few weeks later, where he’ll face off against Yuri Plisetsky—and, by extension, Victor. Yuuri burns the date into his mind; he sees it when his vision blurs during a camel spin, and every crack of his skate seems to land on an imaginary calendar’s square: November 20th. _I’m coming, you jerks._

Anger has neatly solved the little Victor problem, placing Yuuri into an emotionless, neutral space. Looking at Instagram has shades of its old sense of fun; he takes care to like every one of Phichit’s photos of his new hamsters, and every so often throws a thumbs-up emoji onto a skating video or a filtered picture of someone’s brunch. And when Victor does post a lyric, it’s almost like a game: reply without replying. Walk the line of plausible deniability and passive-aggressive snarkiness.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Make Them Gold, by CHVRCHES](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pdrnVf6zCE)_      **2d ago**  
“We are made of our longest days  
We are falling but not alone  
We will take the best parts of ourselves  
And make them gold.”

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Glitter and Gold, by Rebecca Ferguson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POP-Zcsg3Dw)_       **Just Now**  
“All that glitter and all that gold  
Won’t buy you happy  
When you’ve been bought and sold  
Riding white horses, you can’t control  
With all your glitter  
And all of your gold  
Take care of your soul  
  
One day you’re gonna wake up and find that  
New dream is losing its shine and  
Nobody is by your side  
When the rain comes down and you’re losing your mind...”

 

Somewhere off in the distance, some part of Yuuri still feels something—still agonizes over whether he’s crazy, still pores over Victor’s every little word and line to try to discern meaning. But it’s as if that part has been muffled, shuttered behind glass in a room filled with fog.

Anger is a marvellous thing. It gives Yuuri an unprecedented level of focus during training, softening everything else into an unfocused blob creeping at the periphery of his vision. Yakov no longer yells, because he’s not pushing Yuuri anymore; Yuuri is pushing himself. Every day he’s allowed, Yuuri tries to perfect the quads he’s always flubbed; the hundreds of drills and attempts and refinements begin to erode the terrifying thrill he used to feel during takeoff, and soon the toe loop and the salchow begin to seem just like any other jump in his roster.

Yuuko takes a few videos of him practising jumps, and posts them to Youtube. A few days later, Phichit forwards Yuuri a GIF someone’s made where they’ve layered two separate instances of his quad toe loop on top of each other, revealing that they’re nearly identical in stance, position, and execution. Somewhere below the anger, Yuuri feels giddily pleased at the sight of it; he’s never been that consistent before. He doesn’t bother to respond to the GIF creator’s caption, where he’s compared—unflatteringly—to a robot. After all, robots don’t fall on the ice. They don’t cry, they don’t mess up, and they don’t humiliate themselves in ways that come back to haunt them as they try to fall asleep at night. They don’t endure the repetitive, endless cycles of the same horrible feelings, again and again.

The Grand Prix creeps closer. He’s interviewed by SkateBlog.com. “Is there anything that’s inspiring you this season?” the reporter asks.

Yuuri knows this answer instantly: _the thought of taking gold over Yuri Plisetsky. Showing Victor that I never needed him. Making him wonder what could have been for a change, instead of beating myself up. Doing the Eros perfectly, and seducing Victor like he wanted._

But what he says is: “Not particularly. I’ve worked very hard and I’m happy that it’s paying off.”

Anger is a marvellous thing. It makes him giddy, alive, soaring.

He never thinks about the possibility that he might fall.

 

_The Grand Prix banquet is a flurry of suits and sparkling dresses; dozens of conversations, intermixed with clinking glasses and clicking high heels, coalesce into a mild cacophony. And yet, despite the fact that there is movement and sound, everywhere Yuuri looks he sees people frozen in place, captured by a photo’s flash._

_Blink. One minute he’s standing among them, wondering what’s going on; the next, he’s pantsless, arms wrapped around Victor’s waist, begging his idol to become his coach._

_Blink. This time the shift is imperceptible, but all of a sudden Victor’s thigh is definitely being purposefully shoved between Yuuri’s legs, and someone’s breath hitches and Yuuri is naked for a fraction of a fraction of a second._

_Blink. The stripper pole is back and Yuuri leaps for it with no hesitation, doing a full body roll against the metal while staring directly at the only pair of blue eyes in the crowd. He lets his head drop back dramatically._ I bet I can hoist myself upside down, _he thinks with a grin._ No one will expect that.

_Blink. The whole banquet disappears; now he and Victor are alone on a dance floor suspended in space, surrounded by stars, and the Russian champion is skating fluidly across the parquet in his shiny dress shoes. Yuuri watches Victor criss-cross the floor a few times before gliding to a graceful stop right in front of him and reaching out one hand in an undeniable invitation._

Shall we dance? _Yuuri mouths, thinking of Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner in the old movie his mother adores. Victor’s eyes reflect the stars, and his hand is cool and dry when Yuuri takes it, and then he’s swept up into a waltz. He’s somehow wearing a 19_ _th_ _-century ball gown and dress slacks at the same time—a Schrödinger’s gender presentation, the true blend of his physical body and the femme fatale he portrays in the Eros program. Victor, in the lead, snakes his arm around Yuuri’s slender waist and pulls him closer, and then they begin to dance—_

_Blink. He’s dressed in his Eros costume, on his knees, begging Victor to come back._

_Blink. Now Victor is the one in the Eros costume, kneeling, tears streaming down his cheeks._

_Blink. There’s a microphone in Yuuri’s hand, and Victor is sitting in a chair in the middle of the dance floor, illuminated by a harsh bright spotlight. Yuuri struts up to him, looks right into that arrogant, handsome face, opens his mouth, and begins to lip-sync to Jason Derulo’s ‘[Ridin’ Solo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz9ILDFXlFM).’ _

“ _I'm so sorry that it didn't work out; I'm moving on,” he crows, and watches as Victor squirms uncomfortably. Wolf whistles erupt from the crowd. “I’m so sorry but it’s over now, the pain is gone...”_

_With a cocky grin, Yuuri places his foot on the seat of the chair, right in between Victor’s knees, and pushes; the chair glides smoothly backwards across the floor, plunging Victor into darkness: “I'm putting on my shades to cover up my eyes; I'm jumping in my ride, I'm heading out tonight...” He takes a running slide across the floor so he ends up right in front of the chair again. “I'm solo, I'm riding solo, I'm riding solo, I'm riding solo, solo...”_

_Victor, thrown back into the spotlight, breaks eye contact to look pathetically at the floor; Yuuri reaches out and tips his chin back up to sing at him directly: “I'm feeling like a star, you can't stop my shine, I'm loving cloud nine, my head's in the sky...” Victor moves forward, as if to slink away, but Yuuri straddles his lap and pushes him back against the chair with one pointed finger. “I'm solo, I'm riding solo, I'm riding solo, I'm riding solo, solo...”_

_And then Victor suddenly careens forward again but this time his mouth crashes onto Yuuri’s—_

 

_BEEP._

Yuuri opens his eyes, his heart pounding with excitement for all the wrong reasons. His limbs tingle as they process the leftover arousal, emotional and physical, of a revenge dream gone horribly sideways.

_What the hell was that?_

Yuuri has dreamt about the banquet constantly since April, and things have changed before, but Dream Victor has never done... that. He’s never moved or spoken without Yuuri knowing it, in the way that dreamers know they’re dreaming. The Victor in his dreams has been annoyed, humiliated, aloof, remorseful, yearning, and—best of all—regretful, but all of those emotions have been filtered through Yuuri’s own perception. Even when it’s all been humiliating on his part, there’s never been any doubt that the Victor in his dreams has been a construct of his mind.

Until the dream in which he gave a lap dance to a Jason Derulo song and then Victor kissed him.

Yuuri closes his eyes and wills his half-erection to subside. _Not now. Not for this._ It takes ten agonizing minutes before he can swing his legs over the side of the bed and stand without embarrassment.

Worse, the anger—the marvellous, driving, concentrated anger—is gone. The pilot light is out, the fuel depleted; when Yuuri tries to push that mental button, all he gets is a sputtering jolt of irritation.

 _Fuck_.

The anger is gone so suddenly that it feels as though Yuuri has woken up from a coma, or like some evil version of himself took over for a few weeks but has disappeared with barely a trace.

He tries to be firm. It doesn’t work.

 _Victor Victor Victor—_ his mind starts to chant the name in a low-level hum.

Anger is a marvellous thing—for a while.

That last bit is important, and all too easy to forget.

 

During breakfast, alone in the Yu-topia kitchen with everyone else still asleep, Yuuri scrolls through Instagram and feels the familiar bloom of anxiety take hold inside of him and spread, the way a drop of dye behaves when it plunges into clear water. Every bite of food sticks in his throat when he tries to swallow.

For the first time in weeks he finds that he’s acknowledging the conspicuous absence of the subject—the person—that he’s been pretending to avoid.

 _Victor Victor Victor_.

Why a kiss? Why a lapdance? Is this a buried drunken memory, or something Yuuri just made up?

Which of those two options is worse?

 _Why did I delete that photograph?_ He knows why; he couldn’t bear to look at it. But now, months later, the imperfections of memory and the haze of shame have made it nearly impossible to discern nightmare from reality. When Yuuri thinks of the photograph Chris sent him, all those months ago, he realizes he can’t actually remember exactly what it looked like.

Months and months of dreams, transforming the banquet from a horrific nightmare into something far more complicated—something dangerous and thrilling and bold and seductive.

A blackout drunken night, nearly a year old. Those memories surely aren’t buried in the folds of his brain, because that’s not how the mind works—and yet Yuuri finds himself wondering. His thighs seem to hold the muscle memory of straddling a chair, its sides digging into his flesh. He sort of does remember a stripper pole, as absurd as it may sound, and the memory is accompanied by a weird rush of blood to his head, as if he were upside down.

And when he thinks of Victor, the little moth of excitement in his chest begins to flutter no matter how he protests.

Yuuri pushes his breakfast away.

He has never been over it. He knows this on a visceral level; after all, he’s been dreaming about the banquet non-stop. But the anger made him cocky; it made him think that he could just avert his eyes and slyly trick himself around the subject, the way his father used to call ‘I’m giving up!’ while sneaking up on Yuuri during childhood games of hide and seek.

There’s no shock or horror in this revelation; it’s not truly a revelation at all.

For the first time in weeks, Yuuri posts something honest.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Sleepsong, by Bastille](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cuR_Vi6vas)_      **Just Now**

“All you want is someone onto whom you can cling  
Your mother warned of strangers and the dangers they may bring

Your dreams and memories are blurring into one  
The seams which hold the waking world have slowly come undone...”

 

Yuuri doesn’t immediately close the app or pointedly refuse to look at subsequent posts, the way he’s done for the past month. His thumb hovers over the screen in a moment of hesitation, before he taps the middle of the phone, pulls down to refresh the feed, and lets go.

It’s just past eleven at night in St. Petersburg. Not that he’s memorized the time difference or anything.

Yuuri’s legs tingle and throb with the memory of his dream. Why does dancing with Victor feel so _familiar_?

The first refresh yields nothing. The second includes several photos from Jean-Jacques Leroy, who’s apparently found some JJ Girls in Montreal while at lunch with his fiancee. The third, nothing again.

With a groan, Yuuri buries his head in his arms. _This is ridiculous._ But his feet start to twitch in anticipation of hitting the ice, pulling him up from his tabletop slump just as quickly as he fell into it.

Training. Training will take his mind off of things, will give him some momentum, will work out his legs until they don’t feel so goddamn weird anymore. A good long day of training will exhaust him until there’s no energy left to put into this horrible sick iciness in his chest.

Yuuri slips off his stool and puts his bowl into the dishwasher, mentally planning his jumps for the day. He’s just finished washing his hands when he turns—and nearly slams right into Yakov.

 _How can a man that old move so goddamn quietly?_ Yuuri starts to yelp in surprise, but his throat closes when he sees the look in Yakov’s eyes. It’s not his normal mixture of exasperation and annoyance; it’s something much more serious.

“Glad I caught you,” Yakov grunts, and now Yuuri knows something is really wrong because Yakov is never glad about _anything._

“O-oh.”

Yakov’s eyes flick down, and Yuuri follows the gaze to see a small suitcase in his coach’s hand. “I’m off to St. Petersburg. I will be gone three days. My brother-in-law has died and my sister has asked for my help in making... arrangements.”

Yuuri swallows. “I’m so sorry, Coach.”

Yakov shrugs. “Don’t be; he was a drunk son of a bitch. But family is family. Consider yourself on vacation; don’t expect another one until after you win.” And with that, he turns on his heel and walks straight for Yu-topia’s front door without breaking stride or ever looking back.

With the click of the door latch, he’s gone. Yuuri has nothing to do for today. Or tomorrow.

_Fuck._

  
**(Four hours later)**

“Yuuri, would you get the fuck out of here and go do something?!” Mari snaps. “For god’s sake. You’re hovering like a goddamn mosquito. Buzz off.”

Yuuri stops pacing to glare at her. “Was that supposed to be a joke?”

She sneers right back. “Was that supposed to be a question?”

“That doesn’t even make sense, Mari.”

“It doesn’t have to. Go for a run or something, Jesus. One morning without supervision and you’re like a lost puppy. I have work to do, and you’re not going to help with it, so just _leave_.”

Yuuri’s hands tense, clench, and then release. “Fine,” he spits, whipping around to head for his bedroom.

“Thank you!” his sister sing-songs after him, making Yuuri even more furious.

All these months he’s been dying for a little time off, and Yakov’s stupid brother-in-law has to die on the one day when he wanted to—no, he _had_ to—train as hard as possible.

Be careful what you wish for, as the saying goes.

Yuuri had forgotten how goddamn boring Hasetsu was. Yuuko took Yakov’s absence as an opportunity to rework the temperature controls on the ice, so the rink won’t be available until much later this afternoon; Minako is either too busy or too hungover to work with him. There’s nothing to do, and he’s about to crawl out of his skin.

Yuuri yanks his phone from his pocket and opens Instagram. He scrolls through post after post; he sees brunches, cats, selfies, lyrics. Nothing from—

 _No_. Nope. He’s not looking for anything. He’s frustrated and restless and a little shaken from a weird night.

He misses being angry and he misses being happy. He can’t remember when he began to conflate one with the other.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Happy, by Mother Mother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ihcLg2sEQc)_      **5m ago**

“Ask me if I’m happy one more time  
I’ll give you a reply if you give me your eye  
I’ll leave you with an itty bitty hole  
Well it’s nothing like the one inside my soul  
It’s nothing like the canyon of my heart  
Well at least I got some room to fall apart

  
Ask me if I’m happy, I’ll tell you what  
Happy is a diamond in the rough  
Happy it ain’t enough  
Oh you know it ain’t...”

 

It’s a bit on the nose, but Yuuri finds that posting lyrics is making him feel a tiny bit better—

He pulls down the feed to force a refresh.

—And yet, at the same time, it’s all somehow making him feel worse.

  
**(Four hours after that)**

Okay. He’ll admit it. He’s looking for an answer.

Yuuri’s thumb pulls down and releases, and a little circle at the top of his Instagram feed helpfully informs him that the app is refreshing, searching for new posts. He’s seeking something. Anything. He’ll know it when he sees it. He has no idea what he needs.

Again. Again. Again.

He doesn’t know why. He doesn’t know what.

He believed he was better. He believed he was cured. He arrogantly believed he was different, changed, triumphant. That he’d transformed from timid and emotional to ruthless and perfect.

But mental illness doesn’t work that way.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post:[Jackrabbit, by San Fermin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvHzV7ygaOA)_      **Just Now**

“Wanna live like an animal  
By the skin of your teeth  
Put your good face on, not foolin' no one  
You're a jackrabbit underneath  
One step forward, step right back  
Run for the hills, honey, run for the hills, honey  
Run for the hills, don't look back.”

 

Another refresh.

This time—something. A blur of blue eyes and silver-blonde hair.

A video from Yuri Plisetsky’s account.

With a lump in his throat, Yuuri hits the Play button. The video shows Yuri and Victor on the ice, skating perfectly in sync. They turn and launch into equally gorgeous double lutzes, landing with a simultaneous _crack_ which resonates inside Yuuri’s chest. The video ends with a female voice—Mila, maybe—chirping “Not bad for 7am!” in charmingly accented English.

The anxiety bubbles up and over, with no direction, to spill across every part of his brain.

 _Victor Victor Victor,_ chants his heart.

 _No no no_ , he tries to reply.

With a long and weary sigh, Yuuri pulls a pillow over his face and descends into a bored stupor of Youtube videos.

  
**(Nine hours after that)**

A bright light stirs Yuuri from a dreamless snooze, and he opens his eyes with a groan. It’s his phone, lighting up with a reminder to go to bed that’s now 49 minutes overdue; Yakov’s strict schedule has forced Yuuri to sleep quite early, but it’s almost ten o’clock now. He’s not only slept away the entire afternoon and evening—out of _boredom_ —but now he’s wide awake and his whole schedule is thrown off.

Yuuri pulls on his glasses and sits up; he tries to rub his eye and curses when he hits the lens instead. Shaking off the last of his grogginess, he looks down at his phone and realizes he’s pulled up Instagram without even really thinking about it.

The anxiety wakes up, too.

Yuuri goes to scroll down and catch up on the feed, but he freezes in place when he sees the name that, in hindsight, he’s been searching for all day:

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Amazing Eyes, by Good Old War](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBCvwzTXDWY)_      **20m ago**

“You have amazing eyes  
The right one's suspicious and the left one wants my love  
I don't care what you think I've done  
I know I never meant no harm to anyone  
  
You're a little bit broken and I'm a little bit broken  
When we put ourselves together, my oh my  
And you may not understand it  
But something here is working  
So I don’t mind  
I don’t mind...”

 

Yes. Yes yes _yes_.

And no.

But _yes_.

Yuuri closes his eyes, grimacing away the hint of a tear. He taps the link to listen to the song, which is a gorgeous and warm folk tune. Victor cut off the lyric right before the singers croon “’Cause you’re mine” over and over.

 _Y_ _ou’re mine, you’re all mine._

_Except I’m not._

He realizes he’s put both hands over his heart.

Weeks of anger, weeks of thrilling manic hubris, weeks of pretending that things didn’t matter—gone in an instant, a dream, a day. Beneath the thin surface of Yuuri’s braggadocio, he was still anxious and insecure and emotional and—

—And sad.

The last vestiges of anger fall away. Yuuri’s shoulders sag, and he looks at Victor’s username and reads the post again and again and again.

His dreaming mind conjured Victor as a totem, an object, a force against which Yuuri could push. His waking mind only thinks of kindness and katsudon and the longing throb of missed chances.

_I don't care what you think I've done / I know I never meant no harm to anyone..._

_I know_ , Yuuri wants to respond. He opens his mouth to say it.

 _Victor isn’t talking to you_ , his logical self pushes back. _He’s never been talking to you._

He’s told himself these things before, and they’ve been enough to tamp down the surge of hope that Yuuri has denied feeling every time he’s seen Victor’s username. Assume the worst, hope for the best.

But _rational_ is not the same thing as _real_.

Yuuri taps on Victor’s username. He feels his pulse quicken at the sight of a few selfies, but he lets the feeling swell, break, and subside. He starts to scroll back through Victor’s profile history, filtering out the photographs to show only the lyrics, matching them up in his mind with the things he’s posted himself.

Yuuri says _I will beat you fair and square_ . Victor says _I never thought we could be pistols at dawn._

Yuuri says _I made a mistake in my life today_ . Victor says _you’ll figure it out._

Yuuri says _do you know what you’re fighting for?_ Victor says _I’m not scared of fighting._

It doesn’t always work. It doesn’t always match up. But sometimes—

He hangs his head.

_Victor Victor Victor._

_What if? What if? What if?_

Yuuri looks at Victor’s most recent update again. He posted “Amazing Eyes” about half an hour ago. It’s around 4pm for Victor right now. It’s possible he still has his phone handy. It’s possible he’ll be hanging around on social media. It’s possible.

It’s overwhelmingly unlikely, because Victor would never be lonely enough to read Yuuri’s lyrics, never mind interpret them as messages and send messages in return. It’s completely nuts, in fact, but as of right this moment Yuuri decides that logic can go fuck itself.

_Victor Victor Victor._

_I want. I wish. I hope._

He hesitantly, haltingly, creates a new lyric post.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Echo, by Jason Walker](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxpLxb5jHO0)_      **Just Now  
** “I'm out on the edge and I'm screaming my name  
Like a fool at the top of my lungs  
Sometimes when I close my eyes I pretend I'm alright  
But it's never enough

’Cause my echo, echo  
Is the only voice coming back  
Shadow, shadow  
Is the only friend that I have  
  
Listen, listen  
I would take a whisper if that's all you had to give  
But it isn't, is it?  
You could come and save me and  
Try to chase the crazy right out of my head...”

 

He crouches over his phone, clasping it between his hands like a rosary, and listens to his heart beat as the seconds tick by. _One. Two. Three. Four. Five._

Refresh.

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five._

Refresh.

_One._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for your patience, if you're a returning reader. If you're new, then hello! *waves daintily* I hope you're enjoying things so far.
> 
> I really do promise that the next chapter will be up soon—within a week barring any unforeseen circumstances. Also, your comments are seriously amazing, and they never fail to get me through the rough patches of writing. So if you want to leave some more, I certainly wouldn't mind :-)
> 
> ALSO: If you're curious about why these songs ended up in the fic, how I chose them, and where I found them, I've started writing Tumblr posts to explain just that! The notes for this chapter are [here.](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/post/157616386137/setting-sun-music-notes-chapter-6)


	7. I Can Never Seem To Get All Of My Words Across

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My loves! My babbies! I couldn't wait even a week. I love this chapter so much, and the bulk of it was written OVER A MONTH AGO, and I've been itching to share it ever since. I raced through an assignment that isn't due for a little while just so I could justify posting this. I'm so excited for you to read it! 
> 
> As usual, [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx) is a playlist of everything Victor and Yuuri have sent each other. And my notes on the music for this chapter will be on my [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/) shortly.
> 
> I'm foregoing the usual end notes on this chapter for a reason you'll understand (also I'm sorry, I'm so sorry), so here's my pitch now instead of later:  
> If you finish this chapter and find yourself with some feels, well! *unfurls banner reading "Psychiatric Help, 5¢* Why don't you tell me all about it in that there comment box? The Doctor (well, the Master's student, but shh I'm doing a bit) is in. I will be your shoulder. I will be your rock. I will be, uh, the cause of those feels, but I promise I'll be back in the near future to do it all again. Your feedback drives me to work even more to bring this story to you.
> 
> As always, and with love, please enjoy.  
> ~

Refresh.

_Oh, god._

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Never Get You Right, by Brandon Flowers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msMYoM7Xkb8)_      **10s ago  
** “I'll give you my opinion, it's the only one I've got  
They'll turn you into something, whether you are it or not  
  
But they'll never get you right  
I've been watching you all night  
And the people passing by  
Should tremble at your sight.”

 

It’s a sweetly earnest pop song, which begins small—just the vocalist and some synth chords—but gets more passionate and lushly orchestrated with each verse, introducing piano, drums, strings, and background vocals layer by layer. As he listens, Yuuri’s heart leaps to his throat, and he is overcome with knee-weakening desire. Every neuron in his brain is firing, exploding, sending goosebumps up and down his whole body as he witnesses the birth of a brand new craving:

More than anything, Yuuri wants this lyric to be about him.

Suddenly restless, he pulls on some shoes and takes off for Ice Castle. Yuuko has given him a key, assuming—correctly—that Yakov’s schedule would bleed into after-business hours. It’s just past ten, and even from many blocks away Yuuri can see that Ice Castle’s windows are dark.

Perfect.

As Yuuri walks, he doesn’t put “Never Get You Right” on repeat, exactly, but he definitely keeps hitting Rewind as soon as it ends.

Every trio of footsteps seems to echo: _This means something. This means something. This means something._

It no longer matters whether it’s real or not. Yuuri feels the knot of anxiety and restlessness in his chest start to relax as he gets closer to the rink, and as he begins to build a narrative in his mind.

 _You shouldn’t indulge in this,_ chides Rational Lawyer Yuuri.

Normally Yuuri would force himself to agree, but then he comes to the song’s bridge and he’s hit with another wave of desire—and somewhere, in the back of his mind, something pushes back.

_This is what I want. This is my wish._

He can’t pretend otherwise. Not anymore.

What was the last thing he said to Victor? _I’m going to become a super tasty pork cutlet bowl._

He’d never had the chance to say anything else.

For a long time, it seemed like a good thing; Yuuri’s humiliation had been bound to the idea of Victor, and he tried desperately to forget both. Now, though, Yuuri’s mind burns with conversations unspoken, questions unasked, answers unheard.

_I’ll give you my opinion, it’s the only one I’ve got._

Whatever this is, it feels like an answer. He wants it to be one. Yuuri hasn’t even realized how exhausting it’s been to suppress this idea for so long.

As he reaches the doors of the Ice Castle, Yuuri fishes his phone out of his pocket and scrolls back to his own most recent lyric post. He reads and rereads it. Then he scrolls up, to Victor’s post—reads, rereads. He pauses for a moment, a smile creeping up one corner of his lips, and then creates a new post; when he hits ‘Enter’, there’s no terror or anxiety or thrill but just the glow of wish fulfillment. _Were the world mine_.

He feels warm for the first time all summer.

 

Blissfully, peacefully alone on the ice, Yuuri keeps the lights low, puts in his earbuds, and begins to skate while listening to the song Victor posted.

_They’ll turn you into something, whether you are it or not._

He can definitely relate to that. Yuuri closes his eyes as he loops around the far side of the rink and imagines, just for a minute, that he is tiny and blonde and icily perfect at his job instead of the messy jumble of anxiety and carb cravings that he really is. If he were like Yurio, Yakov would be happy. Minako would be happy. Mari would be overjoyed. Hell, his mother would probably be happy to have a confident son who didn’t fall apart at every turn. But Yuuri would not be happy, because imagining himself as Yurio for even one moment is complete agony. He starts a camel spin.

_They’ll turn you into something whether you are it or not._

Is Victor speaking from experience? Is he trying to tell Yuuri something about what it’s like to train so hard, and to be moulded so strictly? He’s always seemed very nice, distinctly at odds with Yakov’s rigidity. Yuuri wonders how the silly, teasing Victor was able to emerge from so many years under such intense pressure.

He frowns, and pulls out of his spin early. He can swear that Victor was genuinely interested in getting to know him and training him, before Yurio showed up and everything went to hell. Trying to pick up any other cues from past interactions is a largely useless exercise; Yuuri’s dreams have transformed the night of the banquet so many times that he can no longer tell truth from fantasy. All he knows is a feeling of loss and the sense that things should have been different—that his life should have taken an alternate path. One which involved Victor Nikiforov.

_I’ve been watching you all night._

A tiny shy smile plays across Yuuri’s lips, and he raises his arms to fifth position and lets them gracefully fall open before sweeping into an Ina Bauer, long and luxurious. Alone in the darkened rink, he can almost imagine Victor standing just off-ice, leaning over the boards casually, blue eyes twinkling like stars as he watches, supportive and kind. Yuuri does a quadruple salchow, landing solidly; in his imagination, a very impressed Victor responds with a flirtatious whistle, which only makes Yuuri smile more.

_I wish you were watching me, Victor. I wish you were cheering me on._

The singer on the track croons: _“But don't give in to the pressure 'cause it isn't gonna stop / The world goes on around you whether you like it or not...”_

The imaginary Victor on the sidelines chimes in: _The people passing by should tremble at your sight._

Just to show off, Yuuri launches into his raised-arm triple loop, which he lands perfectly. _Yeah, they_ should _tremble,_ he thinks with a grin. He tries a quadruple flip, but only makes it a triple, and slides to a stop to grab some water. As he leans over the boards, Yuuri looks down at where his elbows rest, and then slightly to his left—to the empty space which could so easily be filled by Victor, in his long grey coat and maybe a pair of black gloves, like a proper coach. The wave of desire comes crashing in again, pushing a ragged breath from Yuuri’s lungs and making his heart pound against his ribs.

_If Victor was here, he’d be so close._

Face to face. Almost nose to nose, really. When Victor had been in Hasetsu he had been weirdly invasive when it came to personal space; Yuuri remembers sitting on the floor of Victor’s temporary bedroom, freezing in terror as Victor cupped his cheek and asked to learn everything about him. Yuuri had been so freaked out that he’d scrambled, unable to look into those blazing eyes for more than a few seconds.

_I’ve been watching you all night._

It’s been months since he’s seen Victor in person but he can still remember those eyes; they’re _terrifyingly_ blue. Unfairly blue. So intense, so stunning, that you feel something tug from deep in your gut and you want to spill every secret you’ve ever kept. So beautiful that it feels wrong to look at them, but you want to do it nonetheless. You fear you could fall, but your feet itch to jump.

All those moments back in March, all those chances, those little interactions, and Yuuri had wasted every single opportunity to actually look into Victor’s eyes for longer than a few seconds.

He imagines Victor standing on the other side of the barrier again, but this time Yuuri’s hand moves, unbidden, to the space where Victor’s forearm would be, and comes to rest, palm down. The music pulses in his ears, and his heart has swollen with emotion that is spilling over to fill him up, every limb and finger and toe almost quivering with feelings. He closes his eyes for two breaths, and then opens them again, and for the tiniest moment he can almost see Victor staring back, so close their noses are almost touching, so close that Yuuri could just _tilt_ his head ever so slightly to the left, and move just one inch closer—

—and that’s when his feet slip out from under him, flying backwards, forcing Yuuri to grab the barrier with both hands in order to avoid slamming his face into it. His phone was tucked into his back right pocket, and the sudden jerk of his hip causes the earbuds to pop from Yuuri’s ears and clatter to the ice.

The moment has broken, and Yuuri steadies himself, gathering the earbuds back by the cord and taking the opportunity to switch to the Slavonich March. He skates off, brow furrowed for the sake of appearances to an audience of precisely no one, but he can’t keep the expression for more than a few seconds.

Yuuri knows exactly what happened: he tried to stand on the balls of his feet, to make himself just a little bit taller, and he forgot he was wearing skates.

And suddenly he is overwhelmingly thankful that no one is watching him at all.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Were the World Mine, by Tanner Cohen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh-3zBX2wmo)_      **45m ago  
** ****“I know not by what power I'm made bold,  
But still you flout my insufficiency;  
The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace  
  
My ear should catch your voice  
My eye your eye,  
My tongue should catch your tongue's sweet melody—  
My tongue your tongue,  
Were the world mine...”

  
**(The Next Day)**

The distinctive chime of Skype’s video request snaps Yuuri out of a stupor. He wasn’t _asleep,_ exactly, but he’s been zoned out for the past twenty minutes, and he lightly smacks himself on the cheek to wake himself up before hitting Accept.

“Yuuri!”

A smile breaks across Yuuri’s face at the sight of his former rinkmate. “Phichit! How are things?”

Phichit is an endless stream of positive energy, and one of the few people on Earth who doesn’t completely exhaust Yuuri’s social batteries. Even now, with Phichit in Bangkok, it’s hard to resist his effervescence. Sure enough, he’s cheery: “They’re great! I’m so excited for the Grand Prix—congratulations on qualifying, by the way!”

“Ha, yeah. Same to you.”

“Are you hyped yet?”

Yuuri can’t help but sigh. “First I have to do the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship in a few weeks. Because of how I performed—”

“—at Nationals, right. Well, I’m sure it’ll go fine! I hear Yakov Feltsman’s got ridiculously good choreography lined up. Between that and Victor’s stuff you’re going to be tough competition!”

Yuuri casts his eyes over to his laptop screen, which is displaying a long article on the Serbo-Turkish war that he’s barely a third of the way through. “Yeah. It’s... well, it’s been a lot of work.”

Phichit’s face gets closer to the screen. “Is Yakov terrifying?” he asks in a whisper. The amount of thrill and suspense in the question draws a silent huff of laughter from Yuuri.

“Yes.” _And no._

“Listen, Yuuri,” Phichit’s face softens. “I’m really really glad you stayed in the game this season. I was so worried you’d quit when the whole thing with Victor happened. I’m—I can’t wait to share the ice with you.”

Yuuri begins to absentmindedly twirl a pencil between suddenly clammy fingers. “Same here,” he replies, trying and failing to sound unbothered by the mention of Victor’s name.

“Have you kept up with all the gossip? It’s been wild. Apparently Yuri Plise—”

“—Hey, Phichit, thanks for showing me the Lyric Post feature,” Yuuri blurts out. “I mean, I never thanked you. It’s really neat.”

If Phichit notices the sudden topic change—and really, how could he not?—he’s wise enough to take the hint. “Yeah!” he grins effortlessly. “I’m glad people are using it. I love seeing what other people are listening to and I’ve discovered so much new music!”

This time Yuuri manages a properly noncommittal laugh. “It’s interesting. I always wonder—” his voice fails, and he swallows and tries again. “—I wonder why people post the music that they do.”

Phichit cocks his head to the side just a little. “How do you mean?”

 _Yuuri, no. Don’t ask. Don’t ask don’t ask don’t a—_ “Don’t you ever think it’s—revealing?”

This elicits a shrug. “Not really. I think people just enjoy things.”

“You don’t ever think there’s a message behind it?” _Hello my name is Yuuri Katsuki and I have no chill whatsoever._

Phichit, bless him, doesn’t call Yuuri on this ridiculous question immediately. He cocks his head again, brow furrowed in thought. “I mean, I guess? Music is different for everyone, Yuuri. What did that Freud guy say—sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette?”

“Cigar.”

“Right, cigar. I always mix those two up. Anyway, why do you ask?”

Yuuri has no idea what to say. Well, he does: _Oh, no big deal, I’ve been letting Victor’s lyric posts dictate my whole life. Kanye shrug._

Instead, he scrambles. “I’ve been worried about, uh, Seung-Gil. He’s seemed really depressed.” _Nice save, Katsuki._

“Oh no! I’ll have to check, I hadn’t really noticed!”

 _Motherfucker._ “Um—”

“—I mean, _obviously_ I can’t do it now, we’re Skyping. But I’ll keep an eye out!”

Yuuri feels invisible hands grasping at his throat and a sudden overwhelming need to be alone. Luckily, he trusts Phichit to understand his introversion, so he feels no guilt when he gulps and shrugs. “Thanks, yeahAnyway. It’s been really great to talk to you, Phichit! I’ll see you in October.”

Phichit waves. “See you, Yuuri! Let’s chat again soon!” His face disappears with a definitive _beep_ , and Yuuri exhales what seems like three lungfuls of air. He pulls up Instagram to check the feed.

  
@seung-gillee: _Lyric Post –[Sister of Pearl, by Baio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzMmep2KFYE) _    **1** **h ago**  
“Think I might forget it, gonna write it down-down-down  
If it's copacetic, bring it back around-round-round  
I'm tired of fighting another man's pointless war  
So please keep up with it just like you have before.”

 

Well. That kind of works; it’s just ambiguous enough to mean nothing at all, and Yuuri is flooded with relief at his good luck.

He takes a look back at his laptop screen, and then closes it with a sigh. _Done for tonight_ , he decides. As if on cue, his phone lights up with a notification:

  
@phichit+chu: _Lyric Post –[Can’t Stop the Feeling!, by Justin Timberlake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru0K8uYEZWw)     _ **30s ago**  
“Nothing I can see but you when you dance, dance, dance  
Feeling good, good, creeping up on you  
So just dance, dance, dance, come on  
All those things I shouldn't do  
But you dance, dance, dance  
And ain't nobody leaving soon, so keep dancing!”  
_**Comments:** _ @phichit+chu: Hey @katsukiyuuri! This one’s for you! ^_^

 

Yuuri smiles, but it’s perfunctory. His fingers itch, and he doesn’t restrain them, instead letting them fulfill the urge that he craves. He scrolls back and back and back through the feed until he finds what he’s looking for:

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Something About You, by Lucius](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18x5E-3yA8M)_      **4h ago  
** “There's something about you I can't describe  
If only you could see yourself through my eyes  
There is nothing I won't do to show you why  
You cannot hide, you're simply one of a kind”

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Do You Love Someone, by Grouplove](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4jYyUCqUOk)_      **3h ago  
** “I can never seem to get all of my words across  
But you say I'm someone, you say I'm something free  
Yeah, I wish I saw myself the way you see me now  
Cause you see that someone I always want to be.”

 

He rereads the posts as if they were a pair, a call and answer, a conversation.

Now his smile is real.

 

**(One Week Later)**

Yuuri has managed to land his quad flip twice in a row, an unprecedented success. Celestino would have cheered and whooped, calling him over for an affectionate clap on the back, but Yuuri knows not to expect anything like that from Yakov. In fact, Yuuri doesn’t even stop skating; he just keeps going, turning another lap in the rink, and throwing in a double loop for the hell of it.

“Your trailing leg was sloppy!” comes the arenaside call. Yuuri closes his eyes for a moment, the closest thing to a sigh he can manage without Yakov noticing, and skids to a stop in front of his coach.

“I’ll work on it,” he replies.

“Damn right you will,” Yakov grumbles. He looks down at his phone and rolls his eyes dramatically. “Oh for fuck’s sake. Do you know of this Lyric Post shit on the Instagrams? It’s such nonsense. Why would anyone care about what music you’re listening to?”

“Yes, Coach.” Yuuri keeps his voice neutral, giving nothing away, but internally he collapses with relief that Yakov doesn’t appear to be interested in the feature. He’s so swept up in the battle for secret feelings versus outward appearance that he almost misses Yakov’s next complaint:

“See this shit? Nikiforov is publishing such nonsense that _I_ get emails from blogs asking for comment. ‘The people passing by should tremble at your sight’?” Yakov cackles. “He’s always been a _k_ _oroleva dramy_. Just posting this for the attention from the ladies, to give them a little tease.”

Yuuri’s blood goes cold. “I’m sorry?”

“ _Koroleva dramy—_ how you say, a drama queen. This melodramatic vulnerable stuff is like fine wine for the fans.” Yakov laughs again, and the sound makes Yuuri’s teeth hurt. “They think he’s considering this piece for next season! As if anyone could _skate_ to this.”

Yuuri’s eyes flick to the rink barrier but he keeps his mouth shut.

“It’s pathetic. Nikiforov’s a washout; this was his last possible year to compete, everyone knows that. He’s just fishing for some attention, like the obnoxious idiot he is. Lots of pretty little words.”

Yuuri takes a swig of water and silently begs himself to keep his shit together. Miraculously, his brain cooperates. “He does like the spotlight,” he admits, hiding his other hand behind his back just in case it’s shaking.

“He’d flirt with his own mother if it got him some positive attention,” Yakov rolls his eyes again. “Easy to deal with when he’s your champion, but now I see just how annoying it is. I suppose I should be thankful for being given this chance to see Victor from an outside perspective.”

Yuuri sees Yakov’s gaze turn his way, and doesn’t wait to be told; he takes off back onto the ice at top speed to try the quads again. As he gains momentum, Yuuri allows himself one ragged exhalation.

 _Lots of pretty little words_.

He flubs the next flip attempt, smacking his shoulder onto the ice, but the pain barely registers. The next hour of practice becomes a dull blur of monotonous jump prep. As soon as Yakov lets him go, Yuuri drags himself home, step by exhausted step, stewing in his thoughts.

Pretty little words, like “I’ve been watching you all night,” and “you have amazing eyes.”

As he enters his house, Yuuri pulls out his phone.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[You Must Be Out Of Your Mind, by The Magnetic Fields](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77gy-2UUA-c)_      **Just Now  
** “You can't go around just saying stuff  
Because it's pretty  
And I no longer drink enough  
To think you're witty.”

 

Satisfied with that bit of repartee, Yuuri heads for the baths, where he allows himself a longer-than-normal soak while he thinks. The “drink enough” line in the song makes him feel embarrassed, but also a little bit emboldened. He’s spent the past several months feeling humiliated by The Photograph, but it’s getting tiring—and considering how Yakov pushes him, Yuuri can’t really afford to exhaust himself any more than he already is.

 _Being exhausted beyond measure is good for me_ , Yuuri observes, dunking his head under the warm water. _I just don’t have the energy to fret about things._

Things like Victor Nikiforov.

 _But what if he takes it seriously?_ whispers Anxious Yuuri, wrapping an icy hand around his heart and squeezing hard enough that Yuuri surfaces, sputtering and wiping soap from his eyes. _What if this has been real and now you’ve rejected him?_

Then: _What if this really seriously has all been in your head this whole time, and you’ve been reacting to posts that have nothing at all to do with y_ _ou? What if Victor has noticed now and thinks you’re a complete freak?_

Either way, he’s screwed.

Yuuri thinks of racing for his phone to delete the post, but it’s two rooms away and the thought of running is laughable, so instead he just sighs and sinks back under the surface.

_Victor and his pretty little words. Whether they’ve been meant for me or not, it doesn’t matter. Let him have them._

It’s a terrible and shoddy lie, but for the moment it calms Yuuri’s waterlogged brain.

Twenty minutes later, fresh from the bath and towelling off his hair, Yuuri scrolls through Instagram. He sees Victor’s name almost immediately, and suddenly all of the panic that had been held at bay by his exhaustion comes roaring back with a vengeance.

And then it’s almost instantly replaced with severe, severe confusion.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[White Street, by Kristin Kontrol ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb96A5v1dpk)   _ **26m ago**  
“Drink in hand, hole in heart  
I'm searching for warmth under cover of dark  
If you catch my eyes,  
I just might  
Take you up tonight  
  
You know I've never been able to say no to love, no to love...  
You know I've never been able to say no to love, no to love...  
No, I cannot say no to love.”

 

_What in the absolute hell?_

Yuuri reads the lyric over twice, and taps the link to bring up the full song. It’s an upbeat 80’s-inspired synth pop piece, with a heartfelt female singer. He sits on the edge of his bed, brow furrowed, as Victor’s post slides out of focus. The song evokes a little bit of loneliness, sure, but it is most certainly not a rejection. Far from it.

 _Drink in hand, hole in heart._ Yuuri closes his eyes and imagines Victor standing at an outdoor bar, clad in a long coat and scarf, smiling at Yuuri from two barstools away. Snow swirls around them but Yuuri can nonetheless see Victor’s long eyelashes and the bubbles rising in his pint of beer, so vividly that they might almost be real.

 _What_ _are you_ _doing_?! he snaps his eyes open and tries to shake the image from his head, but it won’t budge. The song fades out and starts again, its bass line conjuring images of shoulder pads and frizzy hair and blue eyeshadow under harsh spotlights. Yuuri closes his eyes once more, and there’s Victor again, leaning against the smooth polished hardwood bar—except now there’s also a disco ball and the faintest hint of teal at Victor’s eyelids. While the song somewhat evokes the awkwardness of a 1980’s school dance (not that he’s ever been to such a thing), this image of Victor in Yuuri’s mind remains effortlessly charming and completely infuriating.

 _Why are you doing this?_ Yuuri tries to ask fantasy Victor, but no sound comes out, so he lets the question echo around in his brain. _What’s with this response? It doesn’t seem to make sense. Why are you talking about love—is it to make me uncomfortable? Is it to_ _toy with me?_

_...Is this even meant for me?_

This last thought shatters the entire scene, and Yuuri flinches back into the real world, stung by the epiphany.

 _He’s just fishing for attention_. Of all the people in Hasetsu, Yakov would know Victor best.

_Lots of pretty little words._

Of course this lyric isn’t meant for him; it’s always been possible that none of Victor’s songs have been messages, and that Yuuri has been reading into them way too much. He’s been telling himself as much for months. He’s been fooling himself about it for maybe nine days.

Yuuri drops his phone onto his bed with a tiny _thump._

 _It’s okay,_ he finds himself thinking. _No one probably noticed, and no one else knows you thought this way._ He got swallowed by his own emotions, and now he’s being spat back out; nothing more, nothing less, and nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. This lyric is just the proof, the solid assurance that Yuuri’s been imagining things out of boredom and anxiety and frustration and regret. Incredibly, he’s too exhausted to mourn; in fact, it’s almost a relief.

 _This has never been real_ . _I’ve been conducting a conversation with random song lyrics from a person who thinks I’m stupid and silly and pathetic._ Yuuri closes his eyes again; Victor and the bar are gone, and he’s alone in the dark. _I’ve been trying to recapture a past that never existed. Tomorrow I will get up, and there will not be a secret message waiting for me from Victor. There has never been a secret message waiting for me from Victor._ He stubbornly ignores the pang of hurt and disappointment that stabs him at that thought, shoving it down: _you’ve been acting this way for a week and a half. This is not earth-shattering. It’s better to find out earlier than later_. He tries to be realistic, to remind himself that he’s always known that this was likely the case. Hope for the best, expect the worst.

It doesn’t make the truth hurt any less.

He suspects that the tears will come tomorrow, but for now Yuuri feels empty and eerily calm.

 

For the next week, Yuuri throws himself into his skating harder than ever. He tries to find a sense of mindfulness in the drills and rehearsals, and actively refuses to open Instagram no matter how much he wants to. The Eros short program has become second nature by this point; Yuuri doesn’t even feel embarrassed when he seductively licks his lips in front of Yakov, because the actions feel clinical. The Slavonich March gets better and better with every rehearsal; Yuuri has even begun to look forward to the complicated jumps, and he feels a quiet rush of victory whenever he lands solidly. The passionate terror which once made him so unpredictable is slowly being replaced with something more consistent and reliable, and for the first time in his life Yuuri finds that he’s not quaking in his shoes at the thought of the upcoming Grand Prix. He almost— _almost—_ puts the entire matter of the lyrics out of his mind, until one day during cooldown his phone lights up with a notification which makes his heart stop:

_@v-nikiforov has tagged you in a post._


	8. I Know You're Speaking of Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beloved readers, thank you so much for your kind words, kudos, and love. Over this weekend I had a serious moment of Yuuri-style crushing doubt about the merits and future of this little tale, especially my original planned ending; but your encouragement and your joy and your fury at the cliffhanger (again, sorry) made it clear that I shouldn't give up. I love this piece, and I know you do too. And I think you will _really_ like this chapter. For, uh, reasons.
> 
> As usual, the songs that Victor and Yuuri send each other are gathered in [this playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx), in case you want to listen all the way through. 
> 
> UPDATE! I've also created a public Spotify playlist for Setting Sun, which can be found [here](https://play.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL). For those who want to take the playlist on the go, now you can! 
> 
> Finally, I'm on [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/)! Come say hi; I will say hi back!

_@v-nikiforov has tagged you in a post._

Yuuri drops his water bottle.

 _@v-nikiforov has tagged you in a post_. That’s what the little pop-up says. Yuuri feels nausea rising as he unlocks his phone. He realizes that he’s holding his breath but he can’t seem to force air into his lungs.

The signal isn’t always great inside the rink; Yuuri’s phone quickly flashes up the post, where he sees the words “Red Hot”, before the app goes blank as it attempts to refresh properly. It seems to take forever to reload, and Yuuri jams the Notifications button so hard he fears he’ll break the screen, but when it comes up...there’s nothing.

_What?_

Yuuri swipes to pull down his phone’s notifications list: _@v-nikiforov has tagged you in a post._ He goes back to Instagram: nothing of the sort. He’s wondering if maybe he’s actually gone entirely off the deep end when he refreshes his timeline and sees a brand new post from Victor:

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Red Hot Lights, by Moon Taxi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oTWmVj1Udk)    _ **15s ago  
** "But you've got the fight in your eyes  
And now we're shining under red hot lights  
The truth burns as bright as the sun  
We're gonna come back and show everyone."  
_**Comments:  
**_ @v-nikiforov: My jam today, training with @yuriplisetsky.

 

Yuuri’s blood goes cold.

Victor tagged him by mistake, meaning to tag the other Yuri. That son of a bitch tagged him, deleted the post, and then re-uploaded it with the correct tag. He wasn’t talking about Yuuri at all.

 _Or maybe he did it on purpose_ , whispers Gives-No-Fucks Yuuri. _Just to mess with you._

Yuuri can’t decide which is worse: that Victor hasn’t thought of him at all, or that he’s deliberately trying to get Yuuri’s attention in order to screw with his head. He’s never imagined Victor to have a cruel streak; it seems far more like something Yurio would do. And the lyrics—the lyrics to this song are undeniably indicating excitement at Yurio’s incoming achievements. Victor is cheering on his pupil.

And yet.

The two Yuris have different usernames. In order for Yuuri’s name to be tagged by mistake—if it _was_ a mistake—it probably had to come up as a suggestion when Victor typed the letters Y-U, and it probably had to happen quickly enough that Victor tapped the suggestion without realizing his mistake—that is, it had to come up before the other Yuri. Which means that Victor, somehow, for whatever reason, might be typing about Yuuri Katsuki enough for his phone to set the priority autocorrect to assume that that’s the Yuuri he wants by default .

_I’m so confused._

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Whataya Want From Me, by Adam Lambert](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1Fqn9du7xo)_      **Just Now**  
“There might have been a time when I would give myself away  
Oh, once upon a time  
I didn't give a damn  
But now here we are  
So whataya want from me?  
Whataya want from me?”

 

He winces at the corniness as he hits Post, but it’s the first song that came to mind with the message he wants to send. A clear question, insofar as these convoluted lyric posts can be clear. Unable to sit any longer, Yuuri gets up and stretches his entire body, slowly and methodically—the kind of stretching that every skater is supposed to do after every single practice, but which is often abbreviated because skaters tend to be young adults and young adults have better things to do than to stretch for nearly an hour. But Yuuri does it, limb by limb, muscle group by muscle group, listening to the loudest pop music he can find just to take his mind off things.

He’s not fooling himself. He can’t think of anything else. Still, Yuuri stubbornly holds the last stretch for an extra five seconds before opening Instagram again.

 

@v-nikiforov: __Lyric Post –_[Yo Hello Hooray, by USS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8al1lPBUPI)_      **49m ago**  
“Every day in 50 million ways  
I like to play with each cell of your brain  
I call and say Yo Hello Hooray  
I'd like to wake up a moment from your smile.”

 

“Oh come the _fuck_ on.” Yuuri doesn’t realize he’s spoken aloud until he hears his voice echo back to him in the empty room. He reads the lyrics again. Victor is outright admitting he’s just playing with Yuuri.

_...right?_

Yuuri flashes back to the memory of those intensely gorgeous eyes peeking through silver-blonde hair, of the fluid and effortless performance of the Eros choreography imparted like a gift from the gods. Of searching for love under cover of dark, of trembling at his sight and flickers of radiance. Lots of pretty little words that have always seemed to be supportive, kind, and constructive, pulling Yuuri up when he’s felt aimless and stupid and frightened. All of this, flaunting the line between coincidence and deliberate choice, and Yuuri knows he can’t take the mystery anymore.

 _This can’t continue. I’m going to lose my mind._ He swallows the lump in his throat and creates a new post:

  
@katsukiyuuri: __Lyric Post –__[Rage and Romance, by Bressie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5oVOUgHgE0)     **Just Now** **  
**"Either we are foes or we are friends;  
Fool yourself but we can't pretend  
There's a fine line between rage and romance.”

 

After it uploads, Yuuri scrolls down to Like a couple of Phichit’s selfies; when he refreshes his feed half a minute later— _okay seriously what the fuck?_

  
@v-nikiforov: __Lyric Post –__[Rage and Romance, by Bressie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5oVOUgHgE0)     **10s ago** **  
**“Life’s too short  
Take a chance;  
Skate that line of rage and romance.”

 

_OKAY SERIOUSLY WHAT THE FUCK._

He refreshes the feed again, expecting the post to disappear—but it doesn’t. He refreshes three more times, but it stays there, right above Yuuri’s own post. He nearly drops his phone.

That can’t be a coincidence. It can’t.

_Victor is talking to me._

It’s so obvious that Yuuri finds himself waiting for people to start commenting, wondering if anyone has figured it out. He hovers neurotically over his post for another ten minutes, but no comments bring up Victor’s post—just the usual replies from fans and friends.

As he slouches over the screen Yuuri realizes that something else is bubbling up from underneath the fear—something intense and unpredictable and a little bit terrifying: joy.

 _Victor is talking to_ me!

He’s been right this whole time. Yuuri feels his anxiety crumble under the huge, overwhelming rush of exhilaration and giddiness, and he wants to jump up and scream and yell and tell the whole world that he isn’t crazy and he isn’t alone. Instead, Yuuri posts a single line to Instagram with a confident grin, and a comment beneath it; then he puts on the USS song, launches himself at the ice, and skates as fast as he possibly dares, too fast to jump or spin. The chilled air on his face feels like a prince’s reviving kiss, and his skates sound like the roar of a jubilant crowd.

  
**St. Petersburg**

Yuri Plisetsky never expects those around him to suddenly go bugfuck insane. That’s not a unique quality, but Yuri in particular is always puzzling out how people work, and when they do unexpected things it throws him for a loop. To put it mildly.

He and Victor are on their way back to the skating arena after taking a quick coffee break, because _someone_ drank too much last night and needed more caffeine. Victor is in the middle of nagging him about the pacing of his Ina Bauer when Yuri hears his coach’s phone buzz, and the conversation is put on hold while Victor fishes the device from his coat pocket. Yuri huffs, but keeps walking. _Victor’s even more obsessed with social media than I am, and I’m a teenager._

And that’s when Victor suddenly stops dead in his tracks and bursts out into peals of laughter, so loud and strong that he doubles over, hands on knees. Yuri turns around, scowling.

“What the entire fuck is wrong with you?”

Victor sniffs, wiping away the suggestion of a tear. “Nothing,” he grins. “Just saw something, uh, really f-funny.” He barely finishes the sentence before dissolving into cackling laughter again, gasping for air between breaths.

Yuri can’t roll his eyes hard enough. “Ugh, whatever.” He turns back and walks the last few steps into the arena, but when he begrudgingly holds the door open for Victor, he turns around to realize he’s alone. His coach has vanished.

_Seriously?_

Victor’s been acting very strangely lately, and Yuri isn’t really sure why. He’s been incredibly distracted, failing to catch obvious mistakes during training sessions and totally zoning out for stretches at a time, seemingly lost in his own world. And this is not the first time that something on his phone has elicited a bizarre reaction. It’s weird, and it’s not the normal type of Victor weird.

As Yuri rounds a corner and walks down the hall to the change rooms, he sees a dark shadow on the floor. This is odd, because the hallway has large picture windows facing east, and at this time of day it’s normally flooded with cool crisp sunlight. Yuri follows the shadow up to the centre window, where he can see that the figure is in fact Victor, leaning against the glass. He’s holding his phone in one hand, still shaking with laughter, barely able to stand, and he actually has tears streaming down his cheeks. As Yuri watches, unnoticed, Victor pockets the phone and covers his mouth with his hands, and as he continues to laugh his expression begins to crack—

_Victor, no._

Yuri takes a step back, hand clenching into fist as he watches Victor tilt his head forward, now fisting his hands into his silver-blonde hair, mouth turning from smile to grimace and shoulders trembling as he begins _sobbing_.

Yuri whips around and walks as fast as he can in the other direction. He doesn’t stop walking until he’s at the other side of the building, which is the far end of the arena; he ignores Georgi and Mila’s confused glances and walks straight to the corner, beneath a gigantic Russian flag, where he sits down on the floor, out of sight.

_What is happening?_

Yuri pulls his phone out without really thinking, and opens Instagram. Nowadays it seems overwhelmed with Lyric Posts, which are annoying—the service is for fucking _photographs_ , geniuses—but Yuri has to admit that it’s kind of interesting to know what people are listening to, even if it just serves to reinforce his hunch that most of them are morons.

  
@jjleroy!15: _Lyric Post –[Bombastic, by Bonnie McKee](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJXs5YOkTqk)_      **3m ago**  
“I came to win, win, win  
Betta' show me what you got  
I came to bring the fire 'cause you know I like it hot  
Gonna win, win, win 'cause I'm full of tiger blood  
I'm vicious like a viper and I'm ready to turn it on!”

 

 _Case in point,_ Yuri scoffs.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[I Want You, by Savage Garden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EOWfvX2czw)_      **5m ago  
** “Sweet like a chic-a-cherry cola.”  
_**Comments:  
**_ @katsukiyuuri: I choose romance.

 

_Wait, what?_

Yuri stops and taps on the link to the song. He can’t help it; the line is so bizarre, so out of place, and somehow _familiar,_ that he needs to know the context.

The song is from the late 90’s, by a band that he’s pretty sure Georgi has talked about once or twice. _That’s_ why he faintly recognized the line; Yuri remembers Georgi and Victor joking about it a few years back, because they then teased him about being younger and not getting the reference. The singer rattles off the verses so quickly that Yuri can barely keep up, but he does track the cola line—it’s one of the few things that he can make out upon first listen. The only thing that’s truly discernible is the chorus:

“Ooh, I want you / I don't know if I need you / But, ooh, I'd die to find out...”

Oh, of course. This is all part of that Eros thing Yuuri’s been failing to accomplish for half a year. He always posts weird sad stuff, and this song is different because it’s so upbeat, but it has all the hallmarks of the little piggy trying and failing to be (gag) sexy.

_Yuuri Katsuki gets weirder and weirder every day. What a freak._

Between Yuuri and Victor maybe there’s a madness epidemic going around with skaters who are past their prime. Maybe the final year of your professional career makes you insane. If that’s the case then it explains Victor’s behaviour, since he’s not even skating in the last year he probably could.

Yuri swipes over to the camera and takes a selfie, mostly out of habit. He carefully selects a filter and hits Post, where his photo appears in the timeline just above two new updates:

  
@+guanghongji+: _Lyric Post –_[ _Centuries, by Fall Out Boy_  ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBr7kECsjcQ)    **30s ago  
** “Some legends are told  
Some turn to dust or to gold  
But you will remember me  
Remember me for centuries”

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[F.N.T., by Semisonic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYmdoaB71Do)_      **2m ago  
** “Fascinating new thing  
You delight me,  
And I know you're speaking of me  
  
Fascinating new thing  
Get beside me,  
I want you to love me  
  
I'm surprised that you've never been told before  
That you're lovely and you're perfect  
And that somebody wants you.”

  
**Hasetsu**

Yakov has strictly forbidden all alcohol and drugs, but tonight, to celebrate proof of contact, Yuuri has managed to swipe some of his mother’s red wine from the deepest parts of the pantry, and now he sits in bed in his dark room, listening to the playlist he’s tentatively titled “v” and drinking directly from the bottle. He’s reached “F.N.T,” the latest song Victor sent, so earnest and sweet that it makes Yuuri feel naked even though he’s currently wearing pajamas.

Honestly, the most embarrassing bit is the final stanza from Victor’s post. Because it’s so ridiculously, outrageously silly; Yuuri is many things, but ‘lovely’ and ‘perfect’ are not in his roster. No, he’s a mess of a human, barely a skater, sometimes barely functioning at all.

_You delight me, and I know you’re speaking of me._

Yuuri’s heart skips a beat. After the first glass of wine he went back through every single lyric Victor has ever posted, and he’s seen things that he’d missed the first time around—or hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge.

It was unsure, tentative, subtle at first, but something was there. Has been there this whole time, maybe. But now... _now Victor knows I’m talking about him._

Not to mention he confirmed it with an equally cheesy-awesome 90’s pop song. And here Yuuri thought he was so clever going with Savage Garden.

 _I want you to love me_ , the singer exclaims _._ For the thousandth time, Yuuri finds his mind wandering down the hypothetical path—a rose-coloured trip of what could have been if Victor had stayed to coach him. If Yuuri hadn't been so afraid, so anxious, so ashamed. If he hadn’t pulled into himself like a flower sensitive to touch.

Yuuri grins tipsily. _Why is Victor so obsessed with love anyway?_ He's been connected with handfuls of women, and the skating forums have always speculated on his true sexuality—there have been some weird fanfics pairing Victor with other skaters, the very thought of which makes Yuuri blush. He personally has rarely had time to think about romance before now, and he probably would have avoided the subject entirely had it not been for goddamn Victor.

Victor and his platitudes, his pretty little words, the clichés he throws into his lyric posts just to be difficult and confusing. Yuuri had thought that all the sweetness was Victor teasing him; now that he knows that it’s been intentional, so many previous songs Victor has posted are imbued with _very_ different implications.

Another large gulp of wine, and now Yuuri feels luxuriously warm all over.

See, Victor doesn’t really get it, with all of these pretty little words. When Yuuri thinks of romantic music, he thinks of thudding drums, like the pounding of a heartbeat; he thinks of slinky notes heard in the dark, combined with muffled panting and rhythmic strokes against bedsheets. In the light of day, with his parents around and the weight of the world on top of him, Yuuri can only think of pork cutlet bowls in the most chaste of connections; but _now_ , at night, when he's the only one awake? Now is a very different story.

He opens Instagram without conscious thought, letting his eyes flutter like he’s flirting with the dark, and he thinks of the best thing to send. The wine has made him bold; the shame spiral of the banquet threatens to rise up and cast a pall over this otherwise enjoyable moment, but Yuuri pushes it away with the thought of dazzling blue eyes like spotlights in the dark, and graceful limbs flaunting the line between masculine and feminine.

Rage and romance. I cannot say no to love. I want you to love me. _So many words, Nikiforov. You’ve got romance on the mind too much._

The wine is making him silly, but it’s been too long since he was good and silly.

Even though he’s tried to resist, Yuuri thinks of the banquet, but this time it’s a first-person view rather than the point of Christophe’s camera, and in this heady half-imagined moment Yuuri is actually dancing with Victor, dipping the Russian champion like a ballroom partner. Their foreheads are pressed together, they’re both giggling like teenagers, and Victor smells delicious and is light but solid in Yuuri’s arms.

He takes another drink.

_Let's give Victor a taste of his own medicine._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Addicted to Love, covered by Florence + the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odSGa4ug58U)_      **Just Now  
** “The lights are on, but you're not home  
Your will is not your own  
Your heart sweats, your teeth grind  
Another kiss and you'll be mine  
  
Whoa, you’d like to think that you're immune to the stuff, oh, yeah  
It's closer to the truth to say you can't get enough,  
You're gonna have to face it—you're addicted to love.”

 

 _Addicted indeed,_ Yuuri nods to himself. With that, he stashes the quarter-full bottle of wine securely under his bed before shutting off his phone and letting sleep consume him.

 

_BEEP._

Yuuri wakes up with only a slight sense of bleariness, and notes with disappointment that it is 4:30 and he’s not only awake, but fully alert; Yakov’s relentless schedule has become normal, even after most of a bottle of wine.

And then everything from yesterday comes back to hit him, and now his heart is thudding so hard he swears he can actually hear it.

 _Victor is talking to me. He’s talking to me through song lyrics, and last night I got drunk and flirtatious oh good god what is_ wrong _with me?_

He’s scrolling through Instagram before he’s even put on his glasses, watching images whiz by in multicoloured blurs, but he quickly finds what he’s looking for:

  
@v-nikiforov:  _[Lyric Post – Ubi Caritas, by Maurice Durufle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1BTWCpEFRQ)    _ **4h ago**  
“Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est  
Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.  
Exultemus, et in ipso iucundemur;  
Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.  
Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero. Amen.”  
**Comments:  
** @Honest-Sugar: OMG OMG OMG this is so pretty Victor are you gonna skate to this??  
@nikiforovnik: LOL what does it mean? Are you religious now?  
@ActuallyJillianHoltzmann: IT’S LONG ENOUGH FOR A SHORT PROGRAM JUST SAYIN’

 

... _huh._

Yuuri taps the link and brings up the song, letting it play while he looks up what the words mean. It’s a stunningly beautiful a capella hymn, luscious and rich; the recording was very clearly done in a church, because Yuuri can hear the singers’ voices reverberate at the end of every line, their harmonies suspended in the air as if by magic and able to fade before they sing again.

Finally, Yuuri finds a translation:

 

“Where charity and love are, God is there.  
Christ's love has gathered us into one.  
Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him;  
Let us fear, and let us love the living God.  
And may we love each other  
with a sincere heart. Amen.”

 

Yuuri has never been a religious person, but he understands what it means to use music to express intense and overwhelming love, and he’s struck with the stunning _heavenliness_ of the song—the purity, the joy, the earnestness. He doesn’t recall Victor being particularly religious either, but it doesn’t really matter; Yuuri doesn’t think this was sent in an attempt to convert him.

With a glance at the clock, Yuuri makes a rebellious decision and flops back against his pillow, listening to the hymn over and over again, letting the music wash over him like a wave. It's the most beautiful thing he's heard in a very long time; while the tempo is a tad on the slow side, he can nonetheless imagine Victor skating to it effortlessly, making a believer out of even the biggest skeptic. Not to believe in any sort of religious God, no, but to believe in the power and beauty of the human body, the ability to make art, the ability to push one's physical form into something truly sublime.

And then he accidentally hits something on his phone screen without looking, and his music app switches to “Addicted to Love.”

Yuuri sits straight up, memories coming back even clearer now. He sent Victor a playful, dark song about being addicted to love. Victor has, apparently, replied with a Christian hymn.

The anxious part of his brain whispers that it’s because he’s wrong, _again_ , and that the hymn isn’t directed at Yuuri. But the pounding of his heart is too powerful, pushing him forward on a new trajectory, and deep down Yuuri _knows_ that this was a response. Because it’s exactly the kind of thing Victor would do, in the same way that he gave the Eros choreography to Yuuri when Agape would have suited better. What was it that he’d said, that day at the Ice Castle? _You have to do the opposite of what people expect. How else will you surprise them?_

Yeah. This lyric is _such_ a Victor move. When accused of being overly dedicated to sins of the flesh, respond with the purest, most chaste type of love imaginable—the adoration the faithful feel for the divine. As Yuuri clambers out of bed to start the day properly, he feels a wicked, daring smile spread across his face.

 _That’s not very devout of you, Victor_ , he smirks. _God would surely be displeased._

He knows exactly how to reply.

  
**St. Petersburg**

It’s often very cold in Russia, and Victor actually likes it that way; he finds the snap of the wind against his cheeks to be exhilarating, and he has always maintained that nothing clears the head and sharpens the senses like a brisk walk outside.

At least, that’s Victor’s excuse. Walking outside is also a great way to take a little time to oneself, since few others would dare to go out for any longer than they absolutely have to in this weather, especially at night. That’s why he’s stepped outside of the arena now; he has a mission, and he wants to be alone. On his way out, Victor had waved his phone apologetically in Yurio’s direction, as if he had to take a call or reply to a message, and it’s not _entirely_ a lie; his phone did light up with a notification, and it is something he’s interested in addressing as soon as possible, but the truth is actually Victor’s happy little secret—the thing that makes his heart leap into his throat and puts an uncontrollable smile on his face:

Yuuri has posted a new lyric.

It’s not frostbite-level cold, so Victor has unwrapped his wool scarf from around his face and is walking with his head high, feeling the wind bite at the tip of his nose like an affectionate puppy. He gets around the corner from the arena doors before he stops to dig his headphones out of his pocket, cursing in a string of eloquent and filthy Russian epithets when he finds them tangled. Normally Victor makes the effort to carefully undo the knots, but he knows he doesn’t have much time; thus, with a furtive glance behind him to ensure no one has followed, he jams the buds into his ears and unlocks his phone with trembling fingers.

For the past 24 hours he’s had to resist the urge to scream “fucking FINALLY” to the heavens and maybe tattoo it on his forehead. Because Yuuri seems to get it. Contact has been achieved. He said _I want you_. The post had literally brought Victor to tears, joy overwhelming him until it threatened to swallow him whole, and then he had to go back in to work as if nothing had happened—as if the person he’s been missing so desperately hadn’t finally gotten the picture.

Granted, it was something of a convoluted picture, but you work with what you have.

Posting “Ubi Caritas” had been a bit of a gamble on Victor’s part, but he couldn’t help it; it was the first thing he’d thought of when he’d read Yuuri’s post. He’d pored over his music collection in search of what to send in response, but in the end he’d gone with the hymn—his favourite piece of liturgical music. Victor hasn’t been to church since he was a very small child, but he still adores the emotionality that comes out of love for one’s faith; it isn’t too much of a leap to go from the emotional arousal of prayer to the physical arousal of the flesh, compounded by the grandiosity of a sweeping Romantic vocal harmony. Victor has been curious all evening about Yuuri’s response, barely able to maintain the facade of casualness in front of Yurio, but he pushed the Russian Punk with a lot of quads today, so there wasn’t much time for chatting.

 _I’ll have to get back soon_ , he remembers, and snaps himself back to the task at hand. Gently, luxuriously, Victor opens Instagram to Yuuri’s new lyric post, and hits the link to the song itself before looking at the lyrics; he likes to go in blind, as it were, and let the music take him wherever it may. And this song... _oh, my._ This song begins with a thudding bass line underneath an ethereal choir of instrument noise, and Florence Welch nearly pants with lust just in the opening lyrics, while Victor reads along:

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Bedroom Hymns, by Florence + the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-vrYeVGGZ0)_      **5m ago  
** “This is as good a place to fall as any  
We'll build our altar here  
Make me your Maria  
I'm already on my knees.”

 

_Oh._

Victor stops reading even though there are two more verses in the post. His thumb hits the Rewind button without thinking, sending the song back to the beginning so he can listen again. His heart has reversed course, catapulting from a tension in his throat straight down to a longing shudder in his groin. He tries again:

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Bedroom Hymns, by Florence + the Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-vrYeVGGZ0)_      **6m ago  
** “This is as good a place to fall as any  
We'll build our altar here  
Make me your Maria  
I'm already on my knees  
  
You had Jesus on your breath  
And I caught him in mine  
Sweating our confessions  
The undone and the divine  
  
'Cause this is his body  
This is his love  
Such selfish prayers  
And I can't get enough.”

 

_Jesus Christ._

Victor finds that he’s leaning against the wall of the arena. He arranges his limbs to look as though he’s casually checking his phone, but in reality it’s because his knees have gone a tiny bit weak, so he lets himself slide down to sit against the smooth cold stone. The rest of the song is just as darkly lustful, culminating in a pleading repetition of “ _I can’t get enough_ ” that makes Victor’s breath catch in his throat.

 _I’m already on my knees._ He can certainly imagine it. Months ago, Victor gave up on any feelings of guilt he had when it came to fantasizing about Yuuri Katsuki, and he’s especially thankful for it now, because the thoughts running through his head are absolutely fucking incredible and shouldn’t be tainted with shame.

So this is how Yuuri responds to religious ecstasy: with delicious, seductive sin. Sin on top of sin. Eros embodied.

Victor leans his head back, feeling the cold wall against the top of his rapidly warming scalp. He imagines himself in supplication. He imagines Yuuri, undone and divine, sweating and confessing and oh my _God—_

“Hey! Victor!”

The sound of fingers snapping in front of his face sends Victor plummeting back to Earth, where Yuri Plisetsky stands over him with a fierce scowl. Victor yanks the earbuds from his ears and stashes his phone in his pocket in one smooth motion.

“Oh—huh?”

Yuri’s eyes narrow in suspicion. “I had to call your name three times. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Victor clicks back into his charming persona like a puzzle piece, and grins playfully. “Nothing, Yurio,” he answers, rolling the ‘r’ in Yuri’s nickname like a cat’s purr and watching the teenager squirm in annoyance. “Just thinking about how to improve the score on your free skate. It was getting loud in the arena; you know how I like to sit in the cold sometimes.”

For a split second it seems like Yuri won’t buy it, but then he rolls his eyes and Victor nearly melts from relief. “Ugh, whatever. Just come back in already; Lilia’s getting bitchy.” He holds out a thin hand, and Victor takes it and pulls himself up.

“After you, little one,” he teases, suppressing a full laugh when Yuri whips around in a huff and scatters snowflakes from his blonde hair. Victor keeps two paces back as they tromp through the snow back to the arena door; when he goes inside, his flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes will be chalked up to the cold, and no one but Victor will know that it’s in fact the exact opposite.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, my lovelies, there we have it. Mr. Nikiforov appears at last. Worth the slight cliffhanger from last week, I hope? Let me know your thoughts. <3 I adore you all. 
> 
> Finally: I have genuinely tried my best to avoid putting two songs by the same artist in a row, but the plain and simple fact is that Florence’s cover of Addicted to Love is better than Robert Palmer’s original.


	9. I'm Caught Up in the Middle of It All

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Readers! You're all the best. Please enjoy this small asteroid of feels slamming into your heart; it’s how I show my love.
> 
> Also, small warning, the anxiety descriptions get a bit heavy this chapter. Nothing explicitly triggering, but there is discussion of self-loathing, so bear that in mind if you're in that space right now. <3 <3
> 
> As usual, the songs that Victor and Yuuri send each other are gathered in [this playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx), in case you want to listen all the way through. **This chapter has one exception.** While I've tried my absolute best to limit the songs I choose to those that are available on Youtube, there are a few, starting in this chapter, which just aren't there at all and which I can't upload myself. I have linked the Spotify URL for the song in question; I apologize for the inconvenience, and I encourage you to seek out the song itself if you can because it's stunningly beautiful. 
> 
> I've also created a public Spotify playlist for Setting Sun, which can be found [here](https://play.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL), and will update along with each chapter. For those who want to take the songs on the go, now you can!

That morning, Yuuri has more fun at training than he’s ever had in his entire damn life. The hours fly by, Yakov’s instructions and corrections becoming so much white noise. Yuuri pulls off the free skate almost flawlessly, stumbling out of one combination jump, but even then he finds it hard to feel anything but elated as fuck.

 _Victor Victor Victor._ Yuuri keeps moving as much as possible, because if he’s ever at a full stop he’s overcome with the urge to run off the ice and check his phone. The lyrics to the Florence + the Machine song pulse through him, and when he tries to keep from grinning he bites his lip so hard that he nearly draws blood. He keeps imagining Victor’s response, what it was like for him to receive that post. Was he at the arena? At home? Did he get flustered? _I sure would have._

There’s very little that pleases Yuuri more than the thought of making Victor lose his composure.

He loves this feeling. He loves pushing back, rebelling, taking a holy hymn and turning it into something sinful. How will Victor react?

When lunch finally arrives, Yuuri forces himself to move at an agonizingly slow rate, so as not to tip off Yakov that anything’s particularly different today. He waits for his coach to disappear to the Ice Castle’s kitchen before grabbing his phone, and he’s so frantic that it takes him two attempts to unlock his screen. And then—

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Body 2 Body, by Dragonette](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqcU-wWvTls)_      **7h ago  
** “Now you've got me started  
And I'm on you again  
Thinking 'bout your body  
And what you do with your hands”

 

 _Take my fucking breath away, Nikiforov._ Yuuri grins wickedly, ignoring the way his heart beats just a hair too fast. The song Victor’s sent is a dance-pop piece, and the singer sighs into the tune as if she can’t help being pulled into her lover’s arms. The rest of the lyrics are about a temporary, short-lived relationship that cannot last, but that’s not what Victor _sent_ ; no, he sent the part about how he can’t stop thinking about Yuuri’s body. How Yuuri gets him all hot and bothered. How he can’t even _begin_ to imagine what Yuuri could do with his hands if given the chance.

Yuuri has a flash of that lap dance dream, but this time the idea sends a ridiculously pleasurable jolt to his groin. His manic joy is literally trembling right out of his fingers, and he composes his reply and hits Post within two minutes.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[River, by Bishop Briggs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5jz8xdpR0M)_      **Just Now  
** “Shut your mouth, baby, stand and deliver  
Holy hands, oh, they make me a sinner  
Like a river, like a river  
Shut your mouth and run me like a river”

He wolfs down his lunch, listening to the song he just sent. It’s another bass-heavy, thudding song, but it’s so perfect. After all, they _were_ discussing religion; if Victor’s going to bring up Yuuri’s hands, then it stands to perfect reason that Yuuri should steer the topic back, just with a twist.

This is a ridiculous amount of fun. He _likes_ this game.

He refreshes Instagram impatiently, but of course it’s about three in the morning for Victor. Yuuri feels his heart flutter with anticipation, anxious to see how Victor will respond, but he’ll have to wait. It’s almost time to hit the ice again anyhow.

The afternoon drags longer than Yuuri thought imaginable. He tries his best to maintain the same energy and accuracy that he showed earlier in the day, but he inevitably starts to slip up, thinking again of all the things Victor might do upon seeing the new post. Yuuri feels the escalation as rigidity in his shoulders and giddiness in his chest. He nearly vibrates out of his skates when Yakov stops him to give an hour-long lecture about the merits of raised-arm jumps and whether it would be prudent to introduce one into the free skate so early in the season. Yuuri can hardly stand it.

Eventually, after what feels like years, he is released. He scrambles for his phone with absolutely no dignity at all.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Do What You Want, by Fitz and the Tantrums](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKRcbETci84)_      **36m ago  
** “You're kryptonite  
You make me weak, I know the type  
Rattle my bones and my heart can't take it  
I'm terrified; I know it's probably suicide  
But I don't care, it's a sweet temptation.”

 

Swoon. Just. Swoon. Yuuri has never felt more powerful than he does right this minute. So he pushes again.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Primitive, by The Katherines](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjuG2nWfVsw)    _ **Just Now  
** “Can you do me little favors?  
Can you pay me no mind?  
I am primal and archaic  
In the dark of the night  
  
And it bit down on a closed fist  
When you opened your eyes  
Give me bloodshot little miracles  
Only I say when it's time.”

 

There’s a tingle in his gut and a grin plastered across his face, and Yuuri doesn’t care. He jumps to his feet, inspired, and toddles back to the rink. Yakov is standing with Yuuko, just about to shut off the lights, but Yuuri stops them. He takes off his skate guards, strolls over to the music player, queues up “On Love: Eros,” and scrambles to the middle of the ice, getting there just in time to start the routine.

His arms swirl around his body; he does a small turn, tosses his head to the left, and sees—a blank wall. But it doesn’t matter.

 _Victor Victor Victor_.

Victor, who took all of Yuuri’s awkward katsudon ramblings in stride. Victor, who kept saying it: _seduce me. Seduce me. Seduce me._

And so Yuuri does. He skates every single moment of the routine thinking of nothing but Victor. How he’s come undone, how his heart can’t take it, how he’s unable to stop thinking about hands and bodies and temptation. Yuuri skates the routine as if it were nothing; he lands every single jump almost as an afterthought. As the song comes to an end, Yuuri whips his head and arms into the final position, and finds that he’s smiling wider than he thought possible. It’s not until he’s dropped the pose that he hears it: clapping.

When he looks over, Yuuko is jumping up and down with excitement, phone clenched in one hand and fist-pumping the air with the other. The clapping is coming from Yakov. Slow, steady, but unmistakable.

“What was that?” the coach asks as Yuuri glides to the edge of the rink, panting from exertion.

He shrugs, still grinning. “I just...wanted to do it one more time today.”

And Yakov looks him right in the eye and says the two words Yuuri never thought he would hear:

“Good job.”

 

SKATEBLOG.COM EXCLUSIVE: Yuuri Katsuki’s short program

As the figure skating season ramps up, all eyes have been trained on the drama that kick-started the year, when champion Victor Nikiforov went to Japan to choreograph the short program routine that Yuuri Katsuki will be using this season, and then unexpectedly returned to Russia and began to coach his rinkmate, Yuri Plisetsky. We’ve all heard the rumours about what went down and why. While no one has officially made a statement, the gossip out of St. Petersburg has been a mixed bag, to say the least, inspiring feverish devotion from Team Russia fans and agony from Yuuri Katsuki’s supporters, who have heard relatively little out of Hasetsu—until today.

We are extremely pleased to present a Skateblog.com exclusive: a video of Katsuki performing his short program for the year, entitled “On Love: Eros” and choreographed by Nikiforov. The video was submitted by an anonymous source close to Katsuki, who witnessed an impromptu rehearsal and was able to capture this amazing footage. It’s hard to believe that this is the same Yuuri who’s been known previously as a nervous performer and iffy on his jumps—no such insecurities here, folks! With this routine under his belt, we have no doubt that Katsuki will dominate the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship and be a formidable opponent for the Russian Punk to tackle.

_ Comments: (258) _

**Quad_Axel_:** MY BOY!!! Oh my god. I _knew_ he could do it! Yuuri Katsuki is BACK, y’all, don’t @ me  
  
**Deez_Lutz:** Yowza. Between this and Yuuri’s Instagram feed I’m like 99% sure he has a girlfriend in Japan.  
**  
** **Sarah_Foverton1:** @Deez_Lutz UM EXPLAIN  
**  
** **Betty35:** LOL please, he’s only “back” because Victor Nikiforov, ~*five time world champion*~, choreographed that piece. And because he stole Yakov from the Russian team. This is fraud and he should be disqualified from the Grand Prix.  
****

**DeanWinchesterSpecial:** @Betty35 that’s completely absurd. Coaches switch all the time and it’s perfectly legal for Victor to have choreographed Yuuri’s short program. There’s nothing to disqualify him for!  
**  
** **Betty35:** Yuuri’s a complete trash fire and he’s going to fail just like he always does. Especially up against Yuri Plisetsky and Victor Nikiforov as a team.  
**  
** **VIBGYOR:** He looks good now, sure, but this is just a practice run. Remember the vid where he skated to Stammi Vicino? That was on the same ice, you can tell. Yuuri on his home rink is different from Yuuri in competition. I’m no hater but let’s be realistic. Yakov’s a good technical coach but I don’t know that it’ll be enough. (source: I’ve been watching figure skating for over a decade, kidlets)  
**  
** **Deez_Lutz:** @Sarah_Foverton1, he’s been posting super cutesy lyrics lately! Like stuff by Savage Garden and Florence + the Machine. Like 3 romance songs in a row or something. It could be nothing but in my headcanon he’s totally got a girlfriend.  
**  
** **Sarah_Foverton1:** *squee* I would just DIE?? from the cute????  
**  
** **anonymous:** Katsuki Yuuri doesn’t have a girlfriend.  
**  
** **Deez_Lutz:** oh yeah, and how would you know, anon?  
**  
** **Wish &Wave:** Could be a boyfriend.  
**  
** **Deez_Lutz:** BRUH.  
**  
Wish &Wave:** Just sayin’. Don’t rule anything out. ;-)

  
**(The day before the** **Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship)**

Yuuri’s mental issues manage to hold back until the day before his qualifying competition. The anxiety had stayed small, a little piece of static white noise in his head, but as soon as he opens his eyes that morning it explodes without warning into a full anxious meltdown. And it’s the bad kind.

Sometimes anxiety feels like a physical condition—the tightness in his chest, the lump in his throat, the constriction of his lungs, the overwhelming compulsion to do _something_ with his hands. That anxiety is identifiable, wrapped around his body like ropes, a constant sense of escalating panic. That anxiety has a direction. It has momentum. It rises and rises and rises and eventually it breaks, leaving Yuuri emotionally shattered and mentally exhausted but blissfully _alone_ , where he can start to pick up the pieces.

But then there are the days when he wakes up and just hates himself. They’re the days when his anxiety manifests not as a panicky whirlwind but as a cold, calculating thought process that seems overwhelmingly obvious and cruelly rational. This anxiety curls around his brain like a permanent shadow, and it works at Yuuri’s own pace, slipping toxic ideas into his mind to intermingle with his own thoughts so that they aren’t detected. _Don’t forget to turn the kettle off. These headphones are about to break. Everyone hates you and has quietly abandoned you. You’re beyond help and they’ve given up. That last awkward social interaction was the last straw._

That’s good to know, he thinks.

This type of anxiety is almost worse. It’s not dizzying or exhausting, and it doesn’t demand attention until it burns itself up. It doesn’t even manifest as conscious nervousness about the upcoming competition, even though that’s what triggered it. It’s just a part of Yuuri that whispers poison in his ear with his own voice. In response, he doesn’t panic or cry very much; in fact, unless he’s very vigilant, when Yuuri is confronted with this type of anxiety he will simply accept that it’s the truth.

_You’ve made a fool of yourself and you’re about to do so again. You’ve made Victor so embarrassed that he hasn’t looked at his phone in days. You’re so pathetic. Just let it go, cut your losses, try to scrounge up what remaining dignity you can and start over somewhere else._

Seems reasonable.

It’s not passionate, fiery hatred he feels; it’s just the only conclusion that makes sense. Plug the variables of Yuuri into a calculator and the answer will read _hate yourself because everyone else does_.

He’s been alive for twenty-three years, anxious for probably twenty, and yet he always forgets that the periods where he’s flying high are always just one moment away from a bad plunge into the worst possible mental states. When Yuuri crashes, the histrionic anxiety is almost like a familiar frenemy; it’s a distraction, something to wrestle with, and once it’s exhausted then it’s gone. But on the days when Yuuri hates himself, there’s nothing he can do but just wait it out.

He’s all packed for the Championship tomorrow—the first time he’ll perform the Slavonich March, and the first time he’ll be doing the Eros routine since the Hot Springs on Ice fiasco. Yakov, ever the efficient Soviet, has gotten them so thoroughly ready that they’re actually able to take the entire afternoon and evening off. Yuuri finds his coach in the onsen’s main room just before dinner, watching a soap opera with the sound turned up high, even though to Yuuri’s knowledge Yakov still doesn’t speak a single word of Japanese. The old Russian frowns into his glass of sake as Yuuri takes a seat at the table.

“You’re nervous about tomorrow.”

“Y-yeah.”

Yakov arches an eyebrow. “Why?”

Yuuri fights through the stabs of self-loathing to affect a casual shrug. “I don’t know. I guess...this is my first time performing the Eros since—ow!”

Yakov has reached over and swatted him across the side of the head, albeit gently—almost playfully, except that Yakov doesn’t know the word ‘play’ in any language. “Get out of your silly little head,” he instructs. “Just do it like you’ve done a million times in rehearsal. This is not a big deal.”

 _That is not a helpful thing to tell me._ “I’ll try.”

This elicits a massive eye roll. “Katsuki, you’re being crack-brained.” Seeing Yuuri blink in confusion, Yakov purses his lips. “Er—irrational. Foolish. Audiences are morons; they’ll clap for anything if it’s shiny and spinning fast enough. That ridiculous costume you got from Vitya is plenty shiny, so just spin fast enough. They’ll eat it up.”

The words of a multi-champion coach. Other skaters should be so lucky.

Yakov turns back to the TV, and Yuuri finds himself tongue-tied. What else can he possibly say? _I need help. I’m terrified. I see nothing but failure after failure, in excruciating and vivid detail. My brain is literally broken and it doesn’t matter that all of this is irrational, because I still feel it as if it were real. Please, please,_ please _help me. Tell me it’s going to be okay. Tell me that you see me drowning. Tell me that I’m not alone._

And then, more whispers: _Don’t bother. Don’t fight it. You’re the worst._

Okay.

It would genuinely be easier if he was panicking.

By nine that night, Yuuri is curled in bed like a lump; he’s barely eaten or spoken to anyone other than Yakov. He looks down at his phone screen; a distant part of him still registers the whole Victor situation, and while Yuuri can’t feel much right now, his heart does beat a little faster at the thought of telling Victor he’s having a bad day. He doesn’t know why; Phichit would gladly listen without judgment, Mari usually responds with a blunt-but-useful piece of advice, and Minako’s seen Yuuri in far more compromising emotional states than this. But Yuuri doesn’t want to talk to any of them; for some reason he wants to pour out his heart to his childhood idol, who stormed into his life for barely over a month before blowing away just as swiftly. Someone who is, for all intents and purposes, still a complete stranger.

_It’s because you’re atrocious at forming social bonds and you only have emotional vulnerability to offer as currency. You’re rolling over and hoping desperately for a treat._

Sounds about right.

As he starts to flick through his music app Yuuri exhales in a heavy silent sigh. Everything he thinks of seems to be the worst kind of passive-aggressive vague attention-seeking. But Yuuri is having a rough time of things, and he’s going to try to talk about it. He _has_ to talk about it; it’ll eat him alive if he doesn’t.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Slipped, by The National](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRyHDBWKLzI)_     **Just Now**  
“I'm having trouble inside my skin  
I try to keep my skeletons in  
I'll be a friend and a fuck-up  
And everything  
  
But I'll never be  
Anything you ever want me to be  
  
I keep coming back here where everything slipped  
But I will not spill my guts out  
I keep coming back here where everything slipped  
But I will not spill my guts out...”

 

_This is by far the most pathetic you’ve ever been in your life. Vagueing on social media like a teenager._

Yep, I sure am, Yuuri agrees.

This toxic thing in his brain will never go away. Anxiety will always be a part of his life; it’s just the way it is. And on some level, it feels _good_ to agree with these awful, awful things. Yuuri would never in his life let anyone treat Phichit the way he viciously, mercilessly treats himself. On his better days, he can sometimes remember to catch himself before he descends into an abusive spiral, to try to practice kindness. Other days, not so much.

Yuuri lies in the fetal position, curled around his phone, gazing passively at the far wall. He lets his heart flutter and skip, but his apathy has frozen him in place. After a few minutes, he refreshes Instagram, almost annoyed. _Let’s get this over with. I bet Victor hasn’t responded at all._

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post:[Two Scenes, by San Fermin](https://open.spotify.com/track/1WRHxEmCjysGRlOsDF5U9Q)_      **2m ago  
** “Try to remember sometimes  
That you're skin and bone  
Make it harder on ourselves  
Than it needs to be  
And I can't remember the last time  
That changed anything  
It's always been life or death to me  
That's how it needs to be  
  
It's overwhelming sometimes  
When you're all alone  
And you can't tell if you're floating or falling out of place  
Like the astronaut calls a little dot a home  
Like he can tell from outer space...”

 

A sob bubbles up Yuuri’s throat and threatens to choke him. He knows this song; it’s from the same artist as a song he once sent Victor. It’s one of the last tracks of a concept album that’s not so much about a narrative as it is about feelings; while “Jackrabbit,” the song Yuuri sent, sketches an image of someone skittish and unsure, “Two Scenes” is the climax—the moment when all the thematic pieces come together. The portion that Victor has quoted is a moment of calm in the midst of a storm.

Beyond the comforting beauty of the lyrics he knows so well, and beyond being able to know exactly what Victor means by them, Yuuri realizes something else: either Victor is equally a fan of pretentiously gorgeous Brooklynite chamber pop, or— _or_ —he’s been listening to the music Yuuri’s been sending, diving into the songs and the albums beyond whatever he’s posted to Instagram.

The thought of it draws a breath so sharp it almost hurts. He wants it so badly. He’s never wanted anything else.  
  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Nothing Else Matters, by Aqualung](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6_MF5u6E98)_      **Just Now  
** “And everything shatters  
Everything's falling apart  
I'm hanging in tatters  
Barely a beat in my heart  
And nothing else matters  
No...”

 

He drifts into a half-sleep, shaken awake by the buzz of his phone half an hour later. Groggy and grumbling, Yuuri adjusts his lopsided glasses.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Fear and Loathing, by Marina and the Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oapIgq8h2WQ)_      **1m ago  
** “Not everyone is out to screw you over;  
Maybe, oh just maybe they just wanna get to know you  
  
Now the time is here,  
Baby you don't have to live your life in fear  
And the sky is clear...  
Is clear of fear”

This should definitely be a dream. By all rights Yuuri should just be vividly fantasizing, but he’s not. Victor is reassuring him. He’s being kind and sweet and comforting to Yuuri, a whole half a world away, for no identifiable reason other than that Yuuri reached out and implied that he was hurting.

And Yuuri has absolutely no idea what to say.

There are many reasons why Yuuri guards himself so fiercely, almost all of which trace back to his anxiety, and it’s exhaustingly difficult to change those habits. Yuuri, the optimist trapped in a catastrophe-obsessed mind, will shrink from the world because it’s the only way he knows to just take care of all his neuroses at the same time; and now here comes Victor, telling Yuuri that he doesn’t have to be afraid. That the best skater in the world wants to get to know the bumbling moron who came in dead last at the Grand Prix final and made a fool of himself a million more times over.

Yuuri doesn’t believe it when he tries to tell himself that he’s a good person, but he sure as hell wants to believe it from Victor. He wants to be strong—to show that he’s not pathetic, that he can be _okay_. But he’ll only ever be okay in bursts. Tonight, shrouded by honesty that goes beyond brutal into outright abusive, Yuuri is more aware than ever that he’s never going to be totally free of who he is.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Waves, by Dean Lewis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKlgCk3IGBg)    _ **Just Now  
** “There is a swelling storm  
And I'm caught up in the middle of it all  
And it takes control  
Of the person that I thought I was, the boy I used to know  
  
There is a light in the dark and I feel its warmth  
In my hands, in my heart—  
why can't I hold on?  
  
It comes and goes in waves  
It always does, it always does...”

 

He leaves his phone in his room and wanders downstairs to the baths. The long soak makes him waterlogged and drowsy, finally extinguishing most of the anxiety out of his head. There’s never any breaking point with the self-loathing the way there is with panic; at some point, it just fades. As he towels off and trudges back to his room, Yuuri feels wrung out and emotionless. _Good,_ he thinks. _I can’t do emotions right now._

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Close Your Eyes, by Rhodes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIfRSN5bBPc)_      **10m ago  
** “When I look back,  
I look back on the times you tried to hide  
Inside your delicate mind  
In the end,  
In the end I'm just the same as you  
And it's alright, just stay by my side  
And I will hold on  
  
I'll never let go  
You're right beside me  
So just close your eyes  
I'll never let go, you're all that I need  
So just close your eyes...”

 

Emotions come slamming back with a ferocity that borders on physical assault. This time when the tears come Yuuri doesn’t fight them. He listens to the song over and over and buries his face into his pillow and sobs silently for what seems like hours, too worn out to do anything else. He imagines Victor lying beside him, holding him gently, reassuring him that everything will work out; in this fantasy of support and love, Yuuri finally cries himself to sleep.

  
**(12:39am JST)**  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Can’t Help Falling in Love, covered by Hearts & Colors ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ8ZdoIBics)  _ **Just Now  
** Wise men say  
Only fools rush in  
But I can't help falling in love with you  
Shall I stay?  
Would it be a sin  
If I can't help falling in love with you?  
  
Take my hand,  
Take my whole life, too  
For I can't help falling in love with you...

 

 **(12:40am JST)  
** @v-nikiforov: **1m ago  
**_-Post Deleted-_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all, as always, for your love and support. Comments and kudos are always appreciated and are pretty much always responded to, because you're all such cool people. We should hang out more. Let's go ice skating or something. 
> 
> ***Important bit!*** I confess that I did not plan to post this chapter so soon, as I had another major section planned for it, but yesterday I received news about a very good part-time job opportunity which unfortunately will require a LOT of research work over the next week or two. As a result the next update may be a little delayed, but it's in the works. I thought that this would be better than disappearing for close to a month!  <3
> 
> Obligatory plug, I'm on [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/) and seek new friends to gush about skate boys with.


	10. This is What You Crave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I handed in my final essay of the semester today. Then I finished this chapter. 
> 
> For you, fam. I love your faces. 
> 
> As per usual, the Youtube playlist of all the songs Yuuri and Victor send each other can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx). 
> 
> There is also a Spotify playlist to take on the go, which you can find [here!](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

All performers are superstitious, including figure skaters.

The process of creating art for an audience is inherently unpredictable, regardless of preparation or rehearsal; the stage, whether wood or ice, becomes a place that exists outside of logic and time. The confident professional can be consumed with panic at the last minute, and the terrified first-time competitor can pull off the performance of a lifetime; there’s no way to know the outcome until you’re under the lights. To perform is to grapple with chaos; a superstition is merely an attempt to feign some kind of control over the uncontrollable. Fulfilling this magical thinking provides a shot of confidence.

This is all to say that Yuuri Katsuki, perhaps the most anxious figure skater in the world, is usually superstitious to the point of delirium. He has had so many good luck charms and bad omens that they’ve long since overlapped to the point of uselessness, but he tries to do what he can anyway.

To perform in a sport like figure skating adds another tangle to the knotted mental pathways of self-esteem and artistic expression, because the physical component demands so much time and energy to learn, and it’s the easiest way to quantitatively judge success or failure—but it’s only a small part of the whole picture. You could perfect every jump you can and skate a technically flawless routine, but it’s not truly art; and, crazy as it seems, there are some people (weirdos) who will insist that program components and that mysterious unidentifiable _art_ element are actually more important than quads and combos.

It’s the day of the free skate. Despite—or perhaps because of—his anxiety attack the night before the Championship began, Yuuri did pretty damn well in the short program yesterday, nabbing first place even though he had to perform first. Now comes the hard part: the Slavonich March. The first time he’ll skate to Yakov’s choreography in public, the true test of whether he’s even in good enough shape to justify going to the Grand Prix. It comes down to this.

Yuuri is nervous, but for the first time he finds that he can’t perform any of his old superstitious rituals. Something is different today; something is off.

_I hope I’m not getting sick._

Whatever’s happening, there’s no time to really think about it, because it’s his turn to perform. Yuuri places his skate guards on the barrier and nods to Yakov before stepping out into the rink.

_I can do this. I’ve done it before; there’s nothing stopping me from doing it now. We’ve worked on everything—except the history._

Yuuri keeps forgetting to ask Yakov for more details on the war which he’s supposed to be evoking. It’s too late now; he takes position at centre ice, and the March begins. The last thought that crosses Yuuri’s mind before he starts to move is the name of the Ottoman commander of the first phase of the Serbo-Turkish War (Abdul Kerim, for the record) before his mind just...cracks.

Something is different today. Something is off.

Yuuri glides through the first few portions of the routine, and then it’s time for his first jump—a quad-triple combination. He steels himself, lands the quad just fine, but turns the triple into a double and feels a twinge, like a sudden stitch in his side. His breath seems shallower now.

 _It’s fine,_ he tells himself. _I’ll make the triple salchow into a quad. I’m really good at quad salchows now._

He _almost_ pulls it off, but the twinge has started to turn into an ache, and he steps out of the jump.

_Focus, Yuuri._

But that’s the problem: he _is_ focused. He knows exactly what’s about to happen and his body obeys when he tells it to do something, but it feels weirdly mechanical. 20 GOTO 10; sudo skate routine. Step by step by step.

Yuuri turns around for his next jump, which is supposed to be a triple flip, but in the seconds before he takes off he makes a decision.

“T-that’s a raised-arm triple loop!” the announcer calls, astonished, as Yuuri lands with only the tiniest of wobbles. As he goes into the step sequence Yuuri feels himself frowning.

_What’s going on?_

He’s not afraid.

The realization feels like he’s been dropped into cold water, and only muscle memory prevents him from stumbling through the step sequence. Yuuri goes into autopilot as he thinks.

It’s not just that he’s not afraid; he’d give his left foot for the ability to quell the sabotaging terror that has plagued him through every single competition. But the fear has always been inextricably bound to thrill, and that soupçon of chaos was what made skating so incredible. It’s what turned the steps and spins into a piece of art. There is no emotion in this Slavonich March routine—there’s no emotion in _Yuuri._

Triple-single-triple combination. Yuuri barely realizes he’s landed cleanly until the applause bleeds through the music.

 _How is this happening?_ He’s been doing fine in rehearsals, fine in training. He felt something during the short program, but the short program is—

Yuuri snaps back to attention just in time to avoid smacking into the wall at the far side of the arena; the crowd gasps at the near miss, but Yuuri doesn’t lose his place in the choreography, and he careens around to prep for his final jump: a quad toe loop.

His whole senior career, ever since quads were introduced to his repertoire, Yuuri has always felt the same surge of terror-thrill whenever he’s gone to perform one in front of an audience. Every single time; even with the toe loop, his first reliable quad, the fear never went away. Sometimes it screwed him over, and sometimes it made him beautiful; the former always stuck in his memory more often than the latter. The fear, and the fear _of_ the fear, have always been an element Yuuri has battled during his routines. And now—

He lands it.

The crowd roars with applause as Yuuri surges through the final energetic portion of the choreography, representing the glorious victory after the Russians came to the rescue. He strikes his final pose.

“Katsuki Yuuri has delivered a masterful performance that has the crowd on its feet!” he hears the announcer say. “His incredible improvement in his technical elements will surely increase his score with the judges.”

He skates to the rink entrance, accepting skate guards from a neutral-faced Yakov. For the first time, Yuuri isn’t really worried about what Yakov thinks.

“How do you feel?” his coach grunts.

Yuuri blinks once, twice. “I...don’t feel anything,” he hears himself say, and as the words leave his lips the reality of what they represent slams into him like a wave. He stops dead, unmoving. The Yuuri computer shuts down, and he’d stay that way for the rest of time except that Yakov takes him by the shoulders and turns him around so he can see the scoreboard.

Yuuri’s free skate, the world debut of the new routine, has garnered a healthy 165.20. His total score is 259.56, nearly twenty-seven points higher than he scored at last year’s Grand Prix. But Yuuri doesn’t see that; he doesn’t see Minami jumping up and down with excitement, or Minako fighting her way through the crowd to try to hug him. The entire world narrows to a tunnel focusing on one thing, and one thing only:

His total element score is ridiculously high. Even in his numbed state, Yuuri can do the skating math, plotting the difficulty of his free skate routine against the score he’s received for it. He’s outperformed himself by a significant amount on the technical elements, throwing him into first place in this competition.

But his program component score is thirteen points lower than he’s ever received.

 

When they get back to Hasetsu that night, Yuuri tosses his framed First Place certificate onto his desk and flops into bed with a heavy sigh, wearing boxers and a T-shirt as pyjamas. But he doesn’t sleep; instead he pulls up Instagram and begins to scroll, emotions percolating in his heart as he does.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Something Wild, by Lindsey Stirling and Andrew McMahon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgQbN2E-qsI)_      **15h ago  
** “You've got a big heart  
The way you see the world  
It got you this far  
You might have some bruises  
And a few scars  
But you know you're gonna be okay  
  
Even though you're scared  
You're stronger than you know”  


_He sent this to say good luck_ , Yuuri realizes, and his heart jolts. The night before the Championship comes rushing back to him—the conversation, as it were, that he managed to have with Victor. Yuuri was able to be comforted, with some degree of understanding.

 _I wish I could tell you what happened today. I wish you could help me._ He sighs dramatically, unable to bring himself to care about being heard by his family. _Why couldn’t we just be texting each other?_

It’s a good question, but also easily answered. First, and most obviously, Yuuri no longer has Victor’s number, and he can’t bring himself to ask anyone who might have it. Victor might still have Yuuri’s number in _his_ phone, but he’s never once texted. So if he’s choosing not to communicate directly, it’s because this—whatever _this_ is—isn’t important enough to Victor to reach out like that.

But also, Yuuri has to admit, there’s something about this absurd line of communication that tickles a pleasurable part of his mind. Because, at heart, both he and Victor are athletes. More specifically, they’re figure skaters, and top ranked ones at that. And you don’t get to the Grand Prix—even if you do flunk out—unless you’ve pushed yourself to be there.

This is all to say that there’s a not-insignificant part of Yuuri that’s competitive as all hell. Figure skating gets less terrifying with each passing day, but the Instagram Lyric Post game never loses its edge. Yuuri could spend hours puzzling out the meaning of a message and combing through his music collection to find just the right response—something clever, emotional, not too obvious, preferably obscure. Every time he hits Post, Yuuri sends a silent dare: _top this, Victor. Can you do better?_

Yuuri didn’t know it was possible to feel as frustrated as he does right now. He’s haunted by the notion that he should be happy; he won the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship, after all. He did totally fine. His short program score was ten points higher than his previous best, and even with the stumbles in the free skate he pulled off jumps he never dreamed he’d land.

It’s not enough.

To Yuuri’s knowledge there’s no song on earth that even hints at the message of _I did perfectly fine at the Championship but it wasn’t right._ Bob Dylan has never written anything that said _I might be broken because the thing that made skating magical for me is somehow gone._ There is no obscure indie pop ballad that says _I almost smacked into a wall just before my final quad and my program component score was the lowest I’ve ever gotten, and between those two things my coach doesn’t understand why it’s the latter that’s making me so miserable._

It’s not anxiety that roils through Yuuri’s body, but rather a sense of restlessness. Dissatisfaction. The primal adrenaline rush he normally gets from skating has been denied to him, leaving him all riled up with nowhere to go to expend it.

Yuuri turns off every light in his room and puts on his large, over-ear headphones, tossing his earbuds onto the desk in a tangled heap. He sits cross-legged on his bed, propped up by pillows, and starts browsing through his music collection.

 _Frustrated._ Wanting. Coiled tight like a spring.

He knows he probably shouldn’t but Yuuri can’t help but think of Victor. Again. Always.

_What would happen if he was here?_

How would the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship have gone if Victor had been Yuuri’s coach? Would he have won? Would he have been more nervous, or less? Would they have kissed yet, or would it have been made clear that Victor’s interest was strictly platonic and professional?

Yuuri closes his eyes. Behind his eyelids he sees Victor sitting at the end of the bed, leg crossed over knee. Yuuri’s upper lip curls ever so slightly.

 _You_ left _me,_ he mentally growls. _You left and took something with you and now I don’t know what to do._

Fantasy Victor has no response. Yuuri’s frustration overwhelms him and he imagines diving across the bed to take hold of that arrogant stupid gorgeous face, look into those blue-green eyes, run his fingers through that silvery hair—

Yuuri snaps back to the real world as the music player switches to a nauseatingly upbeat pop song. He was enjoying listening to the previous tune much more, so he puts it on repeat, and then decides to share it:

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Mouth of the Devil, by Mother Mother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8d2CViK6pKk)_      **Just Now  
** “Come back to me  
Come back with me  
Back to when we were young  
And making out in the mouth of the devil”

It’s kind of a meaningless set of lyrics, but the song itself is deliciously seductive, and it’s sending tingles up and down Yuuri’s limbs. His fantasy of Victor still lingers at the periphery of his vision, as shapes in the dark play mind tricks that dissipate the second Yuuri looks directly at them. That goddamn Russian god remains elusive and out of reach.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Black Mambo, by Glass Animals](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49M1O2YgDfE)_      **Just Now  
** “Tickle that cheek  
And take your throne  
Pump your veins  
With gushing gold...”

 

Yuuri waits for fifteen minutes before he gets impatient. It’s about three in the afternoon on a Sunday for Victor; he literally just posted a photo of Makkachin lazily napping in a patch of cool winter sunlight. Yuuri knows full well that Victor is home, probably alone. Probably on his phone. _Notice me, you idiot._

Obviously he needs a bigger hint.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Stop Desire, by Tegan and Sara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYap0qJQO8k)_      **Just Now  
** “I can't deny I'm begging for attention  
Dropping hints, hoping for some tension  
Getting tired of making all this racket  
Waiting on you to get your ass in gear  
I didn't wanna be so invested  
I played it cool and then I overdressed it  
You were there, I was tired of this  
Nonsense when you pretend you don't  
  
Get me, feel me, want me  
Like me, love me, need me  
  
Tonight, if you fuel my fire  
You can't stop desire, oh oh, oh oh oh  
Stop desire, oh oh, oh oh oh”

 

_Come on, Victor._

Thankfully this time it doesn’t take long.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Man on the Moon, by POWERS](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPs8HdpkKI)_      **Just Now  
** “Oh baby, I am just a man on the moon  
I keep spinnin' in circles around you  
'Cause I've been livin' where the black meets the blue  
And it's all I've ever known how to do...”

 

The game is intoxicating, thrilling, exhilarating. Yuuri’s fingers twitch as he imagines taking a fistful of Victor’s shirt and yanking him close, until they’re forehead to forehead, so he can lean in and whisper something scandalous—something that would be shocking and alluring enough that Victor would stumble and Yuuri would win the game of “Let’s see who’s the best tease.”

Then he drops the pretense and just imagines taking a fistful of Victor’s shirt and yanking him close and kissing him. A much more efficient use of lips in close vicinity.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Bad Things, by Jace Everett](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0eQL5R3bw4)     _ **Just Now  
** “I'm the kind to sit up in his room  
Heart sick and eyes filled up with blue  
I don't know what you've done to me  
But I know this much is true  
I wanna do bad things with you”

 

_The judges give Katsuki Yuuri a nine out of ten for his bold opening move and aggressive style through these first few turns. Now the crowds are wondering, can Nikiforov keep up the pace?_

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Do I Wanna Know?, by the Arctic Monkeys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpOSxM0rNPM)_      **10s ago  
** “Are there some aces up your sleeve?  
Have you no idea that you're in deep?  
I dreamt about you nearly every night this week  
How many secrets can you keep?  
'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat  
Until I fall asleep”

 

_Yes. It appears he can._

Yuuri spends more than a few cumulative hours each day reminding himself that lyrics are metaphors, but with all the dreams he’s had about Victor this year, it gives him an _intense_ jolt of pleasure to think that the inverse may also be true. _I hope they’re good dreams,_ he thinks.

 _No. I’ll_ make _them good dreams._

He feels that urge to push again. The Arctic Monkeys song is...well, this is all still very new, but Yuuri can’t help but think that the thudding, slinky songs are more his domain than Victor’s. Also, the tone of the song is entirely too inquisitive; the chorus itself alludes to someone who doesn’t know if their feelings are reciprocated. Where is the flirtatious Victor that’s been around all summer?

Yuuri swallows a lump in his throat. He closes his eyes and again imagines Victor sitting in his bedroom, and that they’re having a conversation with actual words instead of lyrics. _Do you feel the same as I do?_ Victor asks, and the tiniest hint of red appears at the top of his cheekbones as he says it. Perhaps he looks away, hands fidgeting in his lap, and Yuuri is slammed with a rush of adrenaline and desire and dark, dark playfulness. How is Victor even _asking_ this? How on Earth could he have any doubt?

The Arctic Monkeys song even supplies Yuuri’s imagined response: _I'm sorry to interrupt, it's just I'm constantly on the cusp of trying to kiss you._

Okay. So maybe he needs to be a little more specific. Can do.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Body Say, by Demi Lovato](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jca0B2lbqpU)_      **Just Now  
** “You can touch me with slow hands  
Speed it up, baby, make me sweat  
Dreamland, take me there cause I want your sex  
If my body had a say, I wouldn't turn away  
Touch, make love, taste you  
If my body told the truth, baby I would do  
Just what I want to”

 

_Thank you, Phichit, for years and years of mainstream pop music Stockholm Syndrome._

Yuuri imagines that he’s whispering in Victor’s ear, batting his eyelashes, licking his lips. Getting close without ever, ever touching. _Seduce me, Victor._

It takes three excruciatingly long minutes before Victor’s next update.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Supermassive Black Hole, by Muse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgvLej8ln2w)_      **Just Now  
** “Oh baby don't you know I suffer  
Oh baby can't you hear me moan?  
You caught me under false pretenses  
How long before you let me go?  
  
Ooh, you set my soul alight  
Ooh, you set my soul alight...”

 

Now _that’s_ more like it. Yuuri lets the song blast in his headphones, gently tilting his head back to roll his neck. His throat is laid bare, exposed, just begging to be kissed and licked. Yuuri absently traces the line of his jaw with a fingernail, imagining teeth and tongue. His cock twitches.

Suddenly inspired, Yuuri scrolls all the way down to the bottom of his Playlists, to a list called “Class Choreography” that’s hidden in a folder of things he doesn’t listen to very often. The class in question was the pole dance training he took for the better part of two years in Detroit; Celestino had recommended that Yuuri try a dance style outside of ballet, and pole dancing had been sufficiently challenging that Yuuri had not only stuck with it, but had started doing choreography for it. He’d kept it a secret from everyone, even Phichit, and he’d been so insecure that he’d focused all of his efforts on the more acrobatic elements of the sport instead of the seductive ones, but the music he chose was far from chaste. Even after he left the class, Yuuri never broke the habit of tossing potential new pieces into that playlist, even just for his own amusement.

 _There_. He finds the song he wants and puts it on repeat, starting to sway along with the beat and relishing the way that the backing vocals sound almost like desperate, lustful panting. It’s a recent release, but totally perfect for the kind of dancing he used to do.

Yuuri starts to mentally go through one of his old routines, matching its elements to this newer song, grinning just a little at the memory of his dance teacher’s futile attempts to get him to infuse the moves with sensuality. _If only Talia could see me now._

The song starts again and this time Yuuri just flat-out imagines himself at a strip club, illuminated by smoky lights, and that there is a silver-haired stranger sitting in the first row. Yuuri is now fully hard, and he begins to absently rub his hand over the bulge in his boxers as his hips sway and he imagines seducing Victor in a venue where he can look but not touch.

 _I’ve dreamed about this,_ he realizes, remembering the stripper pole in his banquet dreams. _Maybe I’ve wanted to do this for a while._

He can’t really tell Victor the full context of the song without revealing his history to his entire Instagram feed, so instead Yuuri just posts his favourite part of the song—and the part which, in his imagined choreography, would involve rolling and shifting up and down against the pole as buildup before launching himself up into upside-down splits at the chorus:

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Free Animal, by Foreign Air](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=160rtD36ojI)_      **Just Now  
** “You get what you came for, what you stayed for  
I only know how to satisfy your craving  
This is what you crave  
Know what you're made of, what you're made of  
Flesh and bones won't lie  
They won't lie  
  
Free animal, free animal  
My heart beats in patterns to the broken sound  
Free animal, free animal  
You're the only one that can calm me down”

 

Yuuri loses himself fully in the fantasy of pole dancing for Victor for another repetition of the song, and then the next time the fantasy changes; his hips continue to gyrate and he finds he can’t stop himself from imagining that he’s grinding up against Victor. His mind conjures a familiar setting: a dance floor in a banquet room.

A spike of anxiety at the thought. Yuuri pushes the image away; this is not a time where he’ll think about his humiliations. Back to the choreography in his head, to straddling Victor in a chair and doing a body roll, tracing a serpentine shape that ripples from his head down his neck and spine, vertebrae by vertebrae, until he can grind ever so slightly against Victor’s lap and discover that he’s also hard. Yuuri’s thighs clench at the thought of keeping himself _just_ suspended above Victor, so close and yet so far away. Of looking up through his eyelashes and seeing blue-green eyes blazing in the dark, positively _aching_ with want.

How far could he go? How much could Victor take before he snapped and broke the rules and crushed Yuuri in a kiss, pulling him close, grinding right back?

_One hand grabs Yuuri’s hair, yanking his head back and exposing his neck. Victor licks along the line of Yuuri’s jaw while his other hand snakes between his legs—_

Yuuri opens his eyes. He refreshes Instagram with one hand, while the other slips beneath the waistband of his boxers.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Every Other Freckle, by Alt-J](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUZBFLPRUUM)_      **Just Now  
** “I want to share your mouthful  
I want to do all the things your lungs do so well  
I’m gonna bed into you like a cat beds into a beanbag  
Turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet”

 

_Holy fuck._

Yuuri’s thumb circles the head of his cock, swiping away a bead of pre-come, and a silent gasp escapes his lips. He lies back, imagining Victor crawling on top of him, pulling every lever, pressing every button, _devouring_ every inch.

As arousal starts to ripple through him Yuuri sends the sexiest song he knows.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[When the Lights Go Out, by the Black ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjPu_budyEk)_[Keys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjPu_budyEk)      **Just Now  
** “You can be,  
Oh, so mean  
I just can't see  
No in-between  
  
You know what the sun's all about,  
When the lights go out.”

 

With great effort he pulls his hand away from his cock and waits, refreshing the app with intense focus. _Just one more_ , Yuuri thinks. Begs. _Send me something good._

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[A Little Death, by The Neighbourhood](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHeN3RXvCxg)     _**6m ago  
** “She sought death on a queen-sized bed  
And he had said, "Darling, your looks can kill,  
So now you’re dead."  
  
Touch me, yeah  
I want you to touch me there  
Make me feel like I am breathing  
Feel like I am human”

 

Yuuri bites his bottom lip to stop himself from moaning out loud.

_Victor bites Yuuri’s bottom lip, a wicked twinkle in his eyes; he pulls back and breathes a tiny playful “shhh.”_

Yuuri tips his head back against the pillow, hand trailing down his chest and leaving shivers in its wake. Fingertips trace the muscles he’s worked so hard to maintain, down to the V-shaped lines at his hips, and finally up the length of his cock.

_Touch me._

The first few strokes are almost too much, and Yuuri buries his teeth into his pillow, breath hot and desperate against the fabric. The music thuds in his ears and his racing pulse seems to synchronize to it, his hand moving faster and faster— _I want you to touch me there_ , the song goes, and he whimpers an incoherent plea into the pillow.

_Darling, your looks can kill, so now you’re dead._

Yuuri imagines teeth scraping along his jaw.

_Victor, moaning, suffering, begging, simmering down and puckering up._

His chest is cool with sweat.

 _Victor, licking him open—_ Yuuri gapes, mouth frozen open in a silent scream as he comes—every muscle contracting at once, every nerve burning with white fire, the singer in his headphones begging to be touched. When he comes down from it, Yuuri yanks the headphones off and breathes until he can exhale without shuddering. He reaches up to the windowsill for some tissues to clean up.

 _Well, that’s one way to stop feeling frustrated,_ he can’t help but grin.

 

The next morning, Yakov is still jet-lagged, so Yuuri takes off for the rink alone. When he opens his music app, the first thing to pop up is “Free Animal,” sending a shiver down his spine as he remembers last night.

_Oh. Right. Oh my god._

Yuuri braces himself for a rush of anxiety and shame, but it never comes. No, instead he starts grinning like a total lunatic, ducking his head to avoid strangers seeing his expression as he rounds the corner and approaches Ice Castle.

This is a _very_ pleasant change from all the other times he’s awoken after a night thinking of Victor. Yuuri unlocks the door and sighs happily as he slips inside the rink, and then he’s hit with the most incredible idea:

_What if I never had to think about the banquet again?_

God, it’s a wonderful thought. A new beginning, starting from scratch. In the end, all he did was—well, grinding drunkenly on five-time gold medalist Victor Nikiforov is still hideously embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like Victor really remembers it. He’s never brought it up; maybe he was drunk too.

_Oh my god, maybe he was drunk too. Of course._

Victor probably doesn’t remember or care about the banquet disaster. The probability of it is swept away by a rush of giddiness, as a new mantra begins to cycle in Yuuri’s head: he never has to mention the banquet. He never has to mention the banquet. It clearly doesn’t matter anymore. He’s just flirting a lot with a very cute god of skating who clearly likes him back.

_Today is going to be a good day._

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Let’s Get Lost, by Carly Rae Jepsen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2BGjJ_4BTk)_ **Just Now  
** “I was always shy and careful  
I was sure that you would never look at me  
Never wanted to discourage  
Everything your eyes encouraged silently  
  
But you  
You could be the one  
You could be the one...”

 

With puppy love declared, Yuuri skates a few laps at an easy pace, and then he stops to look for another song—something that won’t make him blush nearly as much as Carly Rae Jepsen’s earnest cooing. But as he scrolls, he can’t help but think of the weirdest little incidental detail: the mental choreography of his pole dance last night.

 _Only an insane person like a figure skater would contemplate choreography of sexual fantasies_ , he rolls his eyes. But the idea sticks.

He rearranged the elements of an existing dance, and applied them to a new song.

 _Hmm,_ Yuuri thinks, scrolling absently through his music app.

What does the Slavonich March have? It starts slow, straddling the line between leisurely and mournful, representing the early phase of the war; then it starts to build, as the battle did, but something is still held back. Right at the halfway point of the song (at least in his edited version), the orchestra booms back, as the Russians come swooping in to save the day with a glorious and triumphant finish, culminating in a frenetic series of jumps to the speedy beat.

Yuuri’s finger stops on an album of folk music he loves, and a small curious smile creeps across his face.

_I wonder._

He starts skating to the song, slotting marked jumps in at points where they seem like they would fit. It’s an interesting exercise, at least, and it makes him feel a little bit better about the free skate—or maybe that’s because the anxious memories have been somewhat overrun by the _very_ interesting evening Yuuri had. Nonetheless, he decides to file the idea away in his mind; it might be a good way to warm up once in a while. Plus, Yuuri has to admit that he likes this new song much more than the Slavonich March. Twenty minutes of skating passes by in a blink.

 _Maybe I’ll post this to Instagram,_ he thinks, skidding to a stop in front of his water bottle. Yuuri pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks the screen, copying the lyric portion he wants and opening Instagram. A jolt of emotion zaps through Yuuri as he sees his new favourite thing: a recent post by @v-nikiforov.

And then he reads that post, and the world shatters.

  
**St. Petersburg**

Victor’s had an extremely interesting day.

It’s now past midnight, and he’s still buzzing about the events of the afternoon. He’s pretty sure his flirting with Yuuri crossed into outright seduction, and he forced himself to keep occupied—he went for a run, took a cab to a far-away bar, got deliciously tipsy and let girls flirt with him _(I’m taken,_ he couldn’t help but think, even though it’s ridiculous).

Victor made himself wait until the clock crossed ten p.m. before he let himself dive into bed, giggling from half a dozen cocktails and some beer chasers, and surrender to elaborate fantasies inspired by the little playlist he and Yuuri had curated. Now, sweating and still a little out of breath from orgasm, Victor sees his phone light up with a notification and he grins, rolling over to pull up Yuuri’s new post.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Let’s Get Lost, by Carly Rae ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2BGjJ_4BTk)_[_Jepsen_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2BGjJ_4BTk)      **22m ago  
** “I was always shy and careful  
I was sure that you would never look at me  
Never wanted to discourage  
Everything your eyes encouraged silently  
  
But you  
You could be the one  
You could be the one...”

 

It’s all so adorable sometimes it almost hurts. Victor’s never met anyone who can play coy the way Yuuri can; it’s kind of amazing how he can turn on and off the seduction like a light switch. _Pulling him out of his shell is going to be my speciality,_ he vows.

 _Shy and careful_. Oh, Yuuri. Remarkable, hilarious, bold Yuuri, hidden inside this anxious little shell. Victor imagines teasing him in person, making him giggle at the memory of their first real interaction at the banquet.

Maybe there’s a way to do just that.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Cherry Hearts, by the Shins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWqcPt0TpVI)_      **Just Now  
** “You kissed me once  
When we were drunk  
It left me spinning on my heels  
Call the devil for the deal  
  
You kissed me once  
When we were drunk  
And now I'm nervous when we meet  
I got nothing under my feet”

 

 _Well, we never technically kissed,_ Victor thinks. _But Yuuri knows that. He’ll know what I mean._

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Regret, by Everything Everything](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGqL85qxs90)_     **12s ago**

“Did you imagine it  
In a different way?”

 

 _Or not_. Victor chuckles. He has just the thing.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[So Tied Up, by Cold War Kids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50-EHJrALlI) _    **Just Now  
** “So (so tied up)  
We've been here before  
So (so tied up)  
You want something more  
Lover, best friend, my worst enemy  
You know I won't let you get away  
  
I get you to swerve right outta fast lane  
You still got champagne running through your veins  
You dare me to step up and challenge you  
Neither one of us can stand to lose  
Stand to lose”

 

Yuuri doesn’t respond.

Victor waits for ten minutes, fifteen, thirty, an hour. Three hours, before sleep finally claims him. He waits a whole day, and then a whole weekend. Nothing.

Victor tries to keep calm. He picks apart Yurio’s routines down to the millisecond, pouring his anxious energy into perfecting every turn and twist. He goes home at night and refreshes Instagram again and again, failing to pay attention to whatever dumb thing is on TV.

On the fourth day, Victor searches for Yuuri’s username, and gets no result at all.

 _Has he deleted his Instagram?_ Victor finds Yuuko’s account and locates a recent photo where she tagged Yuuri; his username still exists. But when Victor taps on the link, it says _User not found_.

Victor’s whole body goes cold. Yuuri has blocked him.

He feels the phone slide out of his fingers and hit the carpet with a _thump,_ but he can’t move to pick it up.

Yuuri has blocked him. It’s impossible.

 _Why?_ The question begins to grow inside Victor’s mind. _Why why why why why why why??_

He remains frozen, heart plummeting for what feels like an eternity, until a very cold wet nose nudges his palm—Makkachin.

“Not now,” he hears himself say.

Another nudge, this time more insistent. Victor looks over to meet his poodle’s gaze, and those sweet loving eyes completely break him. He tumbles off the chair onto his knees, throws his arms around the dog, and bursts out crying.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[I Remember, by Yeasayer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3IUwnyMmIw)_     **4m ago  
** “I remember Monday making your eyes red  
Still don't know what it is that I said, woah  
I remember thinking this would never end  
Even when you're gone, your eyes running through my head, woah  
  
You're stuck in my mind  
All the time...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks this chapter goes to my grad school bestie and fellow music geek, who recommended several of the tracks used in this chapter after I told her of my plans. I'm sorry I proceeded to use your favourite band against you, pal. <3 I couldn't resist. 
> 
> Comments and kudos are, as always, incredibly appreciated and seriously very inspiring and motivating. I love hearing what you guys think, I really do! <3
> 
> Finally, I'm on Tumblr at <http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/>. I'm happy to announce that I'm now part of the Victuuri Writers Collective, so thank you to them for letting me hang out with such ridiculously talented people!


	11. You're a Haunted Man and I Was Wrong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello pals! I literally just came from seeing San Fermin live and they played "Jackrabbit" for their finale and it made me cry, I was so happy.
> 
> Also, I can't fucking believe I get to say this but there is now [fan art of _Setting Sun_](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) by the incredibly talented Saniika! Please go see it and give her some love for her incredible work.  
>  As always, for your listening pleasure:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

**St. Petersburg**

Yuri Plisetsky isn’t stupid.

He knows what people say about him. About his potential, about his star power, and about the magnificent risk he’s taking putting his Senior debut into the hands of Victor Nikiforov. He knows people want him to pull it off, for the sake of Victor and Team Russia—and for Yuri himself, maybe. But he’s mostly a talented afterthought.

He knows that he’s the breadwinner of his family. He’s always known, even though his mother tried to keep it from him when he was younger. Whether from winnings, sponsorships, or events, Yuri watched every single penny disappear into the family budget, and he didn’t say a word. A few years after he moved to St. Petersburg he asked a junior hockey player to show him how to squirrel money away, how to open and control his own account, how to save a little for himself so he wasn’t wearing the same practice gear until it wore out five times over.

Yuri knows that his fans see his sullenness as endearing. They call him _kitten, fairy, ice tiger_. His rinkmates call him _punk_. Victor calls him Yurio, just to be annoying. Yuri knows he is none of these things, and also all of them. He knows that he is racing against the ticking clock of his own body; he lies in bed at night and feels his legs ache and knows that the pain isn’t from training but rather from his bones expanding and knitting back together. He knows that things are about to change.

He isn’t stupid. And he hates feeling like he is.

 _Sunshine_ confuses him. He and Victor watched it together when Victor announced the Adagio as Yuri’s free skate piece; he didn’t really understand the point of the film’s ending, but he nonetheless walked away feeling wrung out like a washcloth and he hated feeling like that without knowing why.

The Adagio is incredibly sad, mournful to its core, and full of emotion. The buildup wrenches Yuri’s heart whenever he hears it, and he has to hear it multiple times per day. It wouldn’t be so bad if he enjoyed skating to it—but he doesn’t.

Yuri isn’t stupid. He knows that Victor’s choreography is good; it’s got a high base score, it plays to his strengths, and it challenges him with a few risky-but-doable jumps. It’s the kind of routine Victor would skate.

_It’s the kind of routine Victor would skate._

But Yuri isn’t Victor, and he isn’t stupid. Yuri knows that his theme of selflessness is really the exact opposite; it’s about as selfish as Victor could possibly get. It isn’t about Yuri, because it’s never been about Yuri. Victor isn’t trying to coax selflessness out of Yuri; he’s not trying to get Yuri to evoke sacrifice. The routine isn’t about beauty at the end of the world; it’s about _Victor’s_ sacrifice, _Victor’s_ Void, _Victor’s_ apocalypse. It’s about _Victor_ ripping himself apart.

Yuri can’t fucking stand it anymore.

He can’t stand watching Victor zone out, lost in thought, only to be roused when Yuri manages to get his attention. He can’t stand being told to go do drill after drill of lutzes when what he really needs to work on are loops. He can’t stand the ever-present, unavoidable, crushing knowledge that Victor would rather be anywhere but at the rink. He can’t stand knowing that his Grand Prix success will depend on him being his own coach, and that he’s got to lug around a past-his-prime moron just for show.

It’s all of these things and more which bring Yuri to stand in front of this ornate front door, in a section of St. Petersburg that he’s rarely seen and never been to before. All of these things pulse through his mind, rising and falling in time with the Adagio which never quite seems to leave him. It’s all of these things which curl his hand into a fist to knock on the door as clearly as possible, and give him the courage to plant his feet and wait for as long as it takes.

Yuri isn’t stupid. He knows he needs something more.

The door swings open smoothly to reveal a tall, imposing female figure, standing as straight as humanly possible. Yuri is suddenly overtly aware that he is slouching; while he wants more than anything to curl his shoulders more, just to be difficult, he forces himself to straighten instead.

“Yuri. What are you doing here?”

He lifts his chin another fraction of an inch.

“Lilia,” he replies. “I’d like to ask you something. About training.”

Yakov’s ex-wife arches a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “Shouldn’t you be able to go to your coach for that?” It’s easy to read a sneer in her tone, but Yuri forces himself to remain impassive.

“Yes.” Yuri swallows. “I should.”

A mirthless smile twitches across Lilia’s lips. “Come in,” she says, stepping aside. “I can’t say I haven’t been expecting you, though I’m not happy it’s come to this.”

Yuri closes his eyes as the door thuds shut behind him. “Neither am I.”

_But I’m not stupid._

 

_The Grand Prix Banquet is just a room with some people in it. That’s all._

_Yuuri stands by a back table and downs another glass of champagne. He inhabits the body of an anxious, self-loathing ball of nerves and humiliation, but the feelings are dampened, far away, mere echoes. There are two Yuuris, layered on top of each other like multiple universes: one aching, the other calm. He feels like a hundred angles cobbled together to create a lean line of a man._

_He separates, one version peeling away like a dividing cell, to careen towards the gravitational pull of Victor Nikiforov. It’s always been this way. It will always be this way._

_Yuuri screams but no words come out:_ What happened?

_Christophe Giacometti floats into Yuuri’s vision to reply: Didn’t you know? We assumed you knew._

_Blink. Yuuri is standing on Ice Castle’s rink, the stands filled with a thousand Victor Nikiforovs._ What happened? What did I do? _Yuuri yells. Screams. Begs._ Please tell me what happened.

_A thousand heads cock ever so slightly to one side: Didn’t you know?_

_We assumed you knew._

_Blink. He’s standing at the front of a classroom and isn’t wearing any clothing. Dozens of cruel teenage eyes peek out from beneath blonde hair to growl: Didn’t you know? God,_ everyone _knows._

_Blink. Back on the dance floor. Yuuri watches as the other version of himself reaches out to touch Victor’s hand._

_Blink. The two of them are naked, kissing, fucking. The image shimmers and fades like a mirage; the banquet is still there, with a version of Yuuri and Victor frozen in time, hands just barely touching. Schrödinger's drunken hookup._

_Yuuri screams as loud as he can but makes no sound at all. Tears pour down his face. He bolts across the dance floor to the frozen Victor and tries to shove him, but his hands pass through as if he’s a ghost._

Please. Please tell me. Did we kiss?

_Victor’s voice echoes: Didn’t you know?_

Did you laugh at me?

_I assumed—_

Has this been a joke for you this whole time?

_Didn’t you know?_

_I assumed you knew._

_Blink. Yuuri feels a sharp tug and he lurches off-balance as the floor gets yanked out from under his feet, and then he’s falling—_

 

— _CRASH._ Yuuri snaps awake just in time to feel his shoulder erupt in pain as he hits the floor beside his bed. His legs are still tangled in the sweat-soaked sheets, and he twists to free himself, breathing hard as his body continues to tingle with the feeling that he’s falling. Eventually Yuuri stops trembling, and he sits with his back against the bed, arms wrapped around his legs as tightly as he can manage. Curled; compact; protecting his heart.

 _This is the last dream,_ he realizes. This is it—the last emotional tsunami he will have about the entire Grand Prix banquet mess. _I can’t do this anymore. It will kill me._ Yuuri feels exhausted already, but he knows he’ll never get back to sleep; he checks his phone and finds that it’s barely three in the morning.

Yuuri’s panic attack the night before was one of the worst he’s ever had. He blacked out about fourteen hours and can’t for the life of him remember exactly when he either fell asleep or hyperventilated himself unconscious. Now he leans his forehead against his knees and breathes: _inhale, exhale._ His breath is warm against bare legs.

He’s started to recognize the pattern now, of his emotional ups and downs. He flies so high, up on top of the world, giddy and confident, and all it takes is one thing—one tiny thing—to shoot him out of the air and plunge him down into the worst depths of anxiety.

Yuuri was soaring yesterday morning. He was happier than he thought possible—positively dizzy with it. He was so, _so_ sure that the banquet would never haunt him again, so irresponsibly and breathlessly convinced it was true, and then right on fucking cue Victor sent lyrics that could only be referring to the banquet. So now he has no idea what to think.

 _You kissed me once when we were drunk._ Yuuri shakes his head violently, trying to clear the lyrics from his mind.

 _If we kissed, what else did we do?_ His heart lurches at the thought.

_You still got champagne running through your veins. We’ve been here before._

Yuuri jams the heel of his hand against his temple. _Please leave me. Don’t do this._

It’s far too early to jog to the arena, but he’s never wanted to run more than he does right now.

 

Yakov finds him sitting in the bleachers at Ice Castle. Yuuri’s been there for two hours in the low light, listening to a Russian history audiobook and waiting. Yakov heaves a sigh as he sits down.

“Katsuki.”

“Coach.”

Yakov stares at the ice for what seems like an eternity. “You’re up early,” he finally says, and Yuuri knows it means _tell me what’s going on._ He breathes deep, in through his nose, and then, haltingly, the words start to come.

“Last year at the Grand Prix banquet I...something happened. With Victor.”

Yakov snorts. “Yes, I know.”

Yuuri’s hands clench momentarily into fists. “Well, I didn’t,” he replies softly. “I don’t remember any of it. I didn’t know until—until the day of the Hot Springs on Ice tournament. That’s why I lost.” When Yakov is silent, Yuuri keeps going, now choosing his words very carefully. “Ever since then I’ve been ta—I’ve been trying to figure out if anything...happened. I’ve had flashbacks, or maybe just nightmares. And Victor—I think Victor knows, and he’s been—” his voice cracks, and he squeezes his eyes shut to stop the tears from flowing.

Yakov sighs. “Yuuri...”

His eyes fly open.

“First of all, after your little dance contest at the banquet last year, I separated Celestino from his martinis and made sure he got you back to your room. Alone, for what it’s worth.”

Sweet, cool, flooding relief. Yuuri feels a million knots in his shoulders relax at once. “Thank you,” he manages in a whisper.

“Not that Victor would have done anything, of course, but life is better lived with fewer regrets. Second, have you been in contact with him?” Yakov asks, a slight edge in his voice, and the knots in Yuuri’s shoulders retighten. He swallows.

“No.” _Not exactly_. “It’s...things have been complicated.”

Yakov nods. “I think it’s wise to keep some distance, considering your... _history_ with Vitya,” he says, and Yuuri tries to ignore the way his chest seizes up at the sound of Victor’s nickname. “You have improved this summer but your mind still wanders during competitions. Best to limit distractions.”

“But I’ll see him at Rostelecom,” Yuuri blurts out before he can stop himself. _Fuck my whole life._

Yakov’s eye roll is large, but not particularly exasperated. “So?”

“It’s probably going to be distracting.”

“Again: so?” Yakov cracks his knuckles. “I divorced my ex-wife seven years ago. We often work together on choreography and she handles all of the ballet for Team Russia.”

Yuuri should be shocked that his coach is being so personable, but his emotions have long since given up on being able to respond to things. “It was amicable?” he asks, and Yakov responds with a cackle that echoes through the rink.

“Fuck, no, it was vicious,” he says. “The settlement dragged out for years. But we respect each other’s strengths, and when it comes to training skaters our feelings toward each other were and are irrelevant. We put them aside. Feel whatever you want on your off time, Katsuki; when you’re on the ice, your past with Victor doesn’t have to matter.”

He makes it sound so easy. Yuuri rolls his shoulders as he thinks. “So what—”

Yakov puts up a hand to stop him and rises to his feet. “Just treat Victor as you would any other rival’s coach,” he suggests. Commands, maybe. “Block him on whatever media platform is popular these days. Limit your distractions and focus on your programs. The skating community is small; we all have skeletons, and we all have closets, but we manage to make it work. Do you think you can do that?”

Yuuri stands as well, his eyes already on the ice. “Yeah,” he murmurs absently. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

 

The next few weeks blur together as Yuuri does his final preparations for the Cup of China. He ends up watching both Skate America and Skate Canada on TV; he’d planned on skipping out on them entirely, but Minako yanks him into Yu-topia’s main room and refuses to let him leave. Yuuri and Yakov get drunk on sake as they watch Yuri Plisetsky’s official Senior debut; by the time the podiums are being dragged out onto the ice, Yakov has taught everyone an _impressive_ number of Russian epithets and Yuuri has perfected a whiny impression of his rival which sends everyone into hysterics. He offers to take plates into the kitchen when it comes time for Yurio to sit in the kiss and cry, and manages to avoid ever seeing Victor on the television.

 _Just treat him as you would any other rival’s coach._ Skaters don’t talk to rival coaches outside of competitions, and they don’t really interact on social media. Every time he signs into Instagram, Yuuri itches to go see what Victor is up to, but he forces himself to keep the block in place. _This is what’s normal_ , he tells himself. _This is how things are supposed to be. He’s a coach, I’m a rival skater._

He doesn’t listen to music at all, and he tells himself things will be fine.

 

**The Cup of China**

The stadium in Beijing is so much larger than Ice Castle that Yuuri feels immediately swallowed up—the tiniest little fish gulped down by a whale. He and Yakov navigate the twisting hallways, dodging reporters and other skaters, until Yakov sees someone he knows and immediately abandons Yuuri in order to go socialize.

_Fair enough._

“Katsuki Yuuri!” a chipper female reporter jumps out in front of him, shoving a microphone into his face. “What’s it like going into the Grand Prix knowing you’re scheduled to skate against your rival, Yuri Plisetsky, in the Rostelecom Cup?”

Yuuri gapes. “Excuse me?”

The reporter pushes the microphone even closer. “What’s the season been like training with Yakov Feltsman? Do you regret putting Team Russia in such a precarious position? Have you heard about Victor Nikiforov’s—”

A gigantic hand lands on the woman’s shoulder. “That’s enough,” Yakov snarls. “Go hunt for gossip somewhere else and leave the athletes alone. _Now_.”

She obviously hears the danger in his voice, because she scurries away without another word. Yakov purses his lips, looking at her retreating back with a snarl, and then walks back to his colleagues without so much as a glance in Yuuri’s direction. Which is good, because Yuuri is shaking like a leaf.

 _Victor Victor Victor,_ again and again and forever. God damn it.

Yuuri digs his phone out of his jacket, pops in his headphones, and hits the Play button out of pure habit before he remembers his temporary aversion to music. The guitar riff of “F.N.T.” blasts into Yuuri’s ears.

“ _Fascinating new thing, you delight me and I know you’re speaking of—”_

He scrambles to rip the earbuds off, so intently focused on the task that he isn’t aware of someone behind him until he feels a hand snake its way into his back pocket to squeeze his ass. Before Yuuri can turn there’s a scrape of stubble against his neck and an assault of expensive cologne in his nostrils; Christophe Giacometti.

“Yuuri,” Chris purrs. “Why so tense?”

An imaginary hand closes around his windpipe. “C-Chris.”

“You’re not nervous, are you?” Chris rests his chin on Yuuri’s shoulder. “I hear you’re an all new man this season. That Russian influence—”

Yuuri can feel his fingers and forearms tense up. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Christophe laughs, and Yuuri grinds his teeth so hard he worries they’ll break. “What’s the matter, Katsuki? It’s not as if you have to compete against Victor this year, since he’s coaching Y—”

Yuuri feels rage explode through every limb and he whirls around and grabs Chris’ jacket in both fists. “This is all your fault,” he growls, drawing some stares from the other people in the hall, but Yuuri can’t bring himself to care.

A laugh dies in Christophe’s throat. “W-what? Yuuri, it was just a joke—”

Yuuri forces his hands open, releasing Chris. He’s shaking all over. “You ruined _everything_ ,” he hisses. Chris looks past Yuuri, taking note of the curious onlookers beginning to swarm, and then slings an arm around Yuuri’s shoulders.

“Let’s walk,” he says casually, steering Yuuri out of the room and down the hall. For the entirety of the minute-long walk, Yuuri stares at the floor, hands clenched into fists so tight that his arms begin to ache. As soon as Chris stops, in a small private alcove, Yuuri knocks him away.

“Now,” Chris says. “What is this about?”

Yuuri takes a breath. “You—” he tries, fails, swallows the lump of tears in his throat, and tries again. “You sent me a photograph seven months ago.”

Chris looks perplexed. “... Did I?”

Yuuri starts to shake again. “Of me. And—and V-Victor. At the banquet last year.”

Chris bursts into giggles. “Oh! God, yeah. That was such a great night—”

“—I was _humiliated_ ,” Yuuri hisses, nails digging into his palm so hard that he can’t tell if the slickness between his knuckles is sweat or blood. “I panicked. I lost the Hot Springs on Ice tournament because of that photograph. Vict—I— _why the fuck are you still laughing?_ ”

Chris has covered his mouth with his hand, trying to stifle his chuckles, but he must see something in Yuuri’s eyes because his expression finally softens. “... Yuuri, why on earth would you be humiliated?” he asks, so gently that Yuuri has to stop himself from punching the nearby wall.

“Why wouldn’t I be?!” he’s trying not to sound hysterical, and failing badly. “I drunkenly glommed onto Victor Nikiforov and begged him to become my coach. It was pathetic. It was embarrassing. _I wasn’t wearing pants._ ”

Chris’ jaw drops. “Yuuri, _no!_ ” he exclaims, digging in his pocket for his phone. “God, no. Are you kidding? You were amazing!”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not. Would you—look. Look at this.” Chris shoves his phone under Yuuri’s nose.

It’s an image of the two of them, almost totally naked, and pole dancing together.

_Blink._

Yuuri claps both hands over his mouth. He can’t figure out if he’s about to scream or throw up; maybe both.

“Last year you drank an _impressive_ amount of champagne and single-handedly saved the banquet,” Chris says. “The party was dead until you strolled right up to Yuri Plisetsky and told him—” he snickers. “—you told him that if he thought he was such hot shit then he’d dance battle you right then and there.”

Yuuri sways in place. “I didn’t,” he whispers.

“You did,” Chris grins, swiping through image after image of Yuuri and Yurio having a dance-off, the latter’s face contorted in a competitive snarl and Yuuri frozen mid-giggle. “You won, by the way, though that Russian brat claimed it was because you were more flexible. So then I asked how flexible you really were, and you—well, _apparently_ in Japan the only way to learn someone’s secret is to beat them in a dance contest? Your culture is very dance-centric, Yuuri. I admire it.”

 _It’s really not_ , Yuuri wants to say, but the words die in his throat as Chris swipes his screen, flipping through photos. More of Yuuri and Chris on the pole, demonstrating some of the advanced moves that Yuuri learned in Detroit. More of Yuuri on the dance floor, mid-jump. Smiling, lively, full of swagger and confidence and _joy_. Yuuri, drunk out of his mind, having fun, and—and everyone else having fun with him. Some of the photos have bewildered onlookers in the background, but Yuuri sees more smiles in the crowd with every new image.

“Chris—”

Another swipe, and now it’s a picture of Yuuri and Victor. Yuuri tries to turn away, but Chris shoves the phone into his hands, forcing him to look.

It’s not the photo Chris sent back in April—not even close. It’s a candid shot, the sort that can’t be posed or faked, of Yuuri and Victor on the dance floor. Yuuri has dipped Victor back like a ballroom dance partner; Victor has one leg flung elegantly in the air and his back arched, totally at Yuuri’s mercy. Yuuri is caressing Victor’s cheek, and they’re both laughing, staring at each other as if there’s no one else in the room.

“I...”

“I thought you had this,” Chris says softly. “Victor asked me for a copy immediately. I assumed he would have shared it with you.”

Yuuri can’t respond. He can’t do anything except look at the photo, at the expression on his face. At the blissful joy in Victor’s smile.

Things start to click together.

“...is this real?” Yuuri’s voice comes out as a mangled half-croak.

“Yes. You made quite an impression that night, Yuuri. Especially on Victor.”

Something wet splashes onto the phone screen and Yuuri realizes that he’s crying. He shoves the phone back into Chris’ hands and turns away, mumbling an apology as he walks as smoothly as possible down the hall, spine rigid and shoulders tense. As soon as Yuuri is out of sight, he covers his mouth with his hands and shudders with a sob so powerful that it almost brings him to his knees. He slides down the wall to sit on the floor, fingers flying to his phone.

_Instagram. Now._

Yuuri opens the app for the first time in over a week, ignoring a few dozen notifications. He misspells Victor’s username twice in the search bar, fingers trembling, but finally gets it right and hits Unblock on the account. Victor’s user page reloads to show a grid of unfamiliar photos and lyrics—everything Yuuri has missed over the past few weeks. He starts to scroll.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Heartworms, by The Shins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9aajviWkQ0)_      **3w ago  
** “Well I guess I'm just here to test your patience  
Cause you're so smart my tricks don't work at all  
Is it my lack of education? Just tell me why  
You never call  
  
Behind your symmetry lies a fundamental difference  
There are those who own their minds and those who call  
No offense but, in between the lines I'm reading  
You look out for your own, and you're gonna look at me that way  
  
And it's true, so what can I do?  
Everything you get's slowing your affection  
(What can I do?)  
And maybe impress you with a song  
(What can I do?)  
I'm trying to minimize the damage done cause there ain't no one like you.”

 

_Well, fuck._

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Haunted Man, by Victoria Lord](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1V16jhvK_U)_      **2w ago  
** “I fell for the sadness in your smile  
For the way you tilt your head when you laugh  
I fell, thought you had fallen along  
I fell, thought you had fallen along  
But you're a haunted man and I was wrong.”

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Wishful Thinking, by Carole King](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rtSTQiiFuI)_      **5d ago  
** “I reach for you, but I can't touch you  
I feel you just beyond a star  
Do you know how much you are  
all I ever wanted?  
  
Is it too much too soon?  
Am I foolishly dreaming,  
Just baying at the moon?  
Playing impossible visions like an elementary tune?  
How I wish that I could realize my heart  
But it's only wishful thinking on my part...”

 

Yuuri wants to throw up his own heart.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Waiting For You, by Isobel Anderson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OG5tBD0Y14)_      **15m ago  
** “Days come and go and months pass me by  
And seasons they leave me behind.  
Don't have a thought about where I'll be  
I'll be here till the end of all time.  
'Cause you can't help who you love,  
And boy, it's always been you  
So now I'm here all alone  
Waiting for you.”

 

Yuuri didn’t realize it was possible to feel both hot and cold at the exact same time. _I’m so fucking stupid. I’m so fucking thoughtless. What is_ wrong _with me?_

His thumb hovers for an agonizing minute before he taps ‘Follow’ on Victor’s account.

_I have no idea if he’ll re-follow me back. I probably don’t deserve it._

He swallows the lump in his throat.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[I’m Sorry, by Jay Pray](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JP7YLI7MHA)_      **Just Now  
** “You’ll take me for a ride, you can take me anywhere  
Bad moon’s rising somewhere  
I’ll do anything to get you back  
I still like you like that  
  
And when I call  
Your cell is off  
I miss you a lot  
I admit I fucked up...”

 

The next few hours pass in a haze. Yuuri watches Phichit’s short program and feels all the things he _should_ feel—pride and happiness to see his former rinkmate succeed, nervousness at his own upcoming performance, the slight twinge of anxiety that comes from directly competing against your best friend—but his heart’s not really in it, because his mind is a million miles away, in an imagined room in Russia where Victor might be. His mind roils with questions and unknowns, and there’s only one way to ever answer them: get to the Rostelecom Cup. Survive and thrive and score high enough to progress in the Grand Prix, and get to Russia and explain himself, because as of right now he’s very sure that Victor will never speak to him online again. As Guang-Hong Ji takes the ice, Yuuri tears himself away from the increasingly crowded video monitor and goes for a mini-jog down a side hallway. Every thud of his rubber-clad skate conjures a flash of a photograph or a voice in his head.

_Victor’s face at the banquet. The sparkle in his eyes._

_You made quite an impression that night._

_I fell for the sadness in your smile._

“Katsuki!” Yakov calls, snapping Yuuri back to reality. “It’s time.”

_Okay. Here we go._

The second Yuuri steps out onto the ice, he’s bowled over with the reality of the situation. The Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship may have been the windup, but this moment is the pitch. _This is where I prove that I can do this routine. Victor will see me skate._ Yuuri may not actually see Victor until Rostelecom, but Victor is almost certainly going to see him.

_I want. I wish. I hope._

_Just treat Victor as you would any other rival’s coach_ , Yakov said. But as the Eros music begins, Yuuri can’t help himself; he imagines Victor standing there in the arena, the subject of his love, the object of seduction. When he whips his head to the side Yuuri actually sees a flash of blue—someone’s scarf, or the twinkle of a costume, he can’t really tell—and he can’t ignore the way his heart pounds.

_You made quite an impression that night, Yuuri. Especially on Victor._

Yuuri can feel every part of the step sequence, his toes absorbing the shock when his skates strike the ice. The rest of the universe falls away as he imagines Victor sitting in Russia, watching the Grand Prix on television. It’s the first time Victor will see the new Yuuri—it’s the first time anyone’s seen this new person he’s become, forged in the fire of anxiety and gruelling training regimens. As Yuuri finishes his camel spin he realizes that this idea actually thrills him. _They can laugh at me all they want. They can think this routine isn’t something I would do. But I bet everyone really wants to know the new me._

Yes. Everyone in this stadium, everyone watching on television, the entire fucking _world_ should want this Eros version of Yuuri. But only one person can have him, and only one person deserves him. Yuuri can’t help the sly smile that creeps across his face as he lands his triple axel.

 _I’m the only one who can satisfy Victor,_ he fantasizes. _I am Eros, and Eros is me._

The quad salchow. Last time Victor saw him do this, Yuuri stepped out of it; now—

_Crack._

—now it’s perfect, and the audience’s applause propels Yuuri forward. It’s time for the combination jump.

Yuuri turns, his body bending in all the right places, a marvel of physics. Action, reaction, tension, release.

_You can’t help who you love, and boy, it’s always been you._

His heart is pounding, either from skating or from emotion, he can’t tell.

_I’m the only one in the whole world who knows Victor’s love. I’ll prove that now._

Yuuri launches into the quad toe loop and lands it so solidly that it feels like he’s getting away with something illegal. During the triple he lets his arm flutter just a tiny bit above his chest—not enough to count as a raised arm, but daring and bold and technically audacious, and the crowd explodes into cheers and applause. As Yuuri sweeps through the last movements, representing the moment when the woman casts her lover aside to move on to the next one, he realizes: _this isn’t part of the story anymore._

No. The woman doesn’t cast her beloved aside. She pushes him away, but then pulls him back. She realizes that the way she sees the world has changed, that she knows what she wants, and at the very last moment she reaches for him again and pulls him into an embrace that will never ever—

— _e_ _nd_.

The music cuts out and Yuuri feels his body stop moving. For a split second he is drenched in silence, and then the crowd’s roar washes over him and Yuuri can hear the commentator excitedly yelling something about _highest technical difficulty_ and _the birth of a new Katsuki Yuuri._ He feels the strangest sense of calm.

_I know what I’m going to do when I see Victor at Rostelecom. I’m going to pull him back._

“No one can deny that this was a perfect performance!” the commentator exclaims. “It’s a personal best for Katsuki Yuuri, and the audience is still on their feet!”

Yuuri bows one last time. _For you, Victor. I’m sorry._ He starts heading for the rink exit.

“He’s used last season’s disappointment as a springboard, and under Coach Feltsman’s tutelage he’s undergone an astounding transformation!” the commentator says.

Yuuri’s eyes are blurry from the chill of the ice and the sweat threatening to drip into them. As he nears the edge of the rink he can just make out the next competitor waiting at the barrier; it’s Georgi Popovich, clad in dark purple and covered in dramatic makeup, ready to skate his routine.

Yuuri grabs one of his skate guards, but the other has fallen off the barrier. Behind him, he hears the crowd give one last roar of approval. Suddenly aware that he’s blushing, he turns back and gives them a quick wave, but the roar doesn’t stop; in fact, it gets louder, and people seem to be pointing in Yuuri’s direction, as if they didn’t just see him skate.

 _I’m supposed to be at the kiss and cry,_ he remembers, and it’s _so_ weird that people are still cheering and shrieking and jumping up and down, but maybe Yuuri’s skating worked; maybe they’re all entranced and maybe, just maybe, Victor saw him skate.

He steps off the ice, eyes trained on the floor looking for his errant skate guard, ears still ringing from the strangely disconcerting enthusiasm of the crowd. He finally finds what he’s looking for—black rubber skate guard on black rubber mats makes for a frustrating camouflage—and as he hops on one foot to yank it on he nearly collides with someone right in front of him.

“Sorry,” Yuuri mumbles; his palm lands on the stranger’s chest for balance, a stabilizing hand closes around his wrist, and then he looks up and sees exactly what the crowd was cheering about.

It’s Victor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so a few things:  
> \- Yes, I just did that.  
> \- Despite originally stated plans, I am not fully finished Chapter 12 yet, but I'm working on it!  
> \- As always I am at [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com/), where I post about writing and repost a lot of silly things. Come say hi, drop asks, request music recs, etc!  
> \- Finally, your comments are so fucking wonderful and I just love every single one of them. Thank you so so much. Please let me know what you think, and I adore all of you. <3
> 
> \- OKAY ALSO now that you've read the ending of this chapter Saniika drew art for it LITERALLY TODAY, and it's [fucking amazing. ](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by)  
> \- Update! azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10, which can be seen [here!](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right)


	12. The Songs That Matter The Way We Used To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PLEASE NOTE THE RATING CHANGE.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That cliffhanger is the hardest one yet, they said.  
> Can't take it anymore, they said.  
> So on edge right now I can't even, they said.  
> Queen of slow burn, they said.
> 
> Welp.  
> 
> 
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

Victor fucking Nikiforov. In China. In front of Yuuri’s face.

Yuuri yanks his wrist out of Victor’s grasp and scrambles backwards as fast as he can, hitting the rink barrier with a thud. His costume suddenly feels as if it’s choking him, and he knows he’s gawping like an idiot but his face has completely stopped functioning. Everything has stopped functioning.

If it’s any consolation (and it isn’t), Victor looks just as shocked as Yuuri currently feels; his blue-green eyes are wider than Yuuri’s ever seen them, and his face is nearly as pale as his hair. And Yuuri _really_ needs to be at the kiss and cry, but the world has completely fallen away and he’s having trouble standing. His vision narrows to a tunnel and all he can see is the fine rich caramel colour of Victor’s coat, the black gloves that can’t hide trembling fingers, and the look in his eyes.

A hand on his shoulder—Yakov. Without a word or even a glance in Victor’s direction, Yakov steers Yuuri like a grocery cart over to the kiss and cry. Once there, Yakov pushes on his shoulder until his knees bend and he sits on the bench. Above his head, Yuuri can see his own face on the large TV screens in the middle of the arena; he looks deathly pale and outright terrified—the opposite of how a skater should look after a successful performance.

 _Do something, you idiot._ Yuuri absently fiddles with his water bottle, bringing it to his lips for a few fake mouthfuls until he sees the colour return to his gigantic video self’s cheeks. Yakov, sitting beside him, is as still as a stone. The video monitors overhead light up with a bright red-orange score card.

“And we have Katsuki Yuuri’s short program score: 106.84!” comes the echoing call from the announcer, and the stadium erupts into applause again. “A new personal best! He’s currently in first place!”

A year ago Yuuri would have given anything—his dog, his soul, his dog’s soul—to be in first place at a Grand Prix event. He’s never scored that high before in his entire fucking life. But right now his only reaction is _oh._

_Victor Victor Victor._

It's one thing for a guy to arouse you with Maurice Duruflé and Muse from half a world away. It's another to see him in the flesh—and oh, god, thinking about flesh is a _very_ bad idea right now.

As soon as his image disappears from the video screens, Yuuri bolts like a bullet fired from a gun. He doesn’t even stick around long enough to worry what Yakov might say; he just needs to be out of the arena and into a safe place as fast as possible. Yuuri pauses in the change rooms long enough to rip off his skates and pull on shoes, swallowing his nausea at the realization that he’s done this before.

Everything, always, comes back to the Hot Springs on Ice.

Instead of running through the skaters’ area, Yuuri forces himself to walk like a normal human being. The bottom drops out of his emotions and autopilot takes over; he sees himself smile and nod as fellow skaters come up to congratulate him, and he’s pretty sure he manages to answer every question in English, but it all sounds like gibberish inside his head. He finally sees a friendly face: Phichit.

His former rinkmate lights up when he sees Yuuri and opens his arms, obviously anticipating a hug, but instead Yuuri grabs his forearm and keeps walking. “I need to talk to you. Now.”

Phichit nearly trips over his feet thanks to the sudden change in direction, but he complies, and they weave through the back halls of the arena until they find an empty stairwell. As soon as they’re alone, Yuuri collapses onto the steps, knees drawn in to his chest.

“Phichit,” he gasps. “Help.”

“Why do you look as if someone just died?” Phichit asks, sitting down next to him. “Did you not see your score? Yuuri, you’re in first place! You did amazing!”

“Victor’s here,” Yuuri moans through his fingers. “Why is Victor here? He’s not—Yurio’s not—”

“Uh, he’s here with Georgi,” comes the answer. “The associate coach couldn’t renew his passport in time so Victor stepped in.”

“How do you know these things?” Yuuri tries not to sound suspicious but his mouth and brain are pretty much disconnected. If Phichit is offended, he doesn’t show it; he just cocks an eyebrow.

“Boy, you really don’t keep up with the internet, do you?”

Yuuri moans. “God damn it.”

Phichit puts a supportive hand on Yuuri’s arm. “Yuuri, listen, I know the Hot Springs on Ice thing was awful, but you’ll have to interact with him eventu—”

“— _Rostelecom!_ ” Yuuri almost shrieks, voice echoing through the stairwell. “I’m not supposed to have to see him until Rostelecom. I’m not prepared for this, Phichit, I can’t... this isn’t supposed to happen yet.”

“Yuuri, it’ll be fine,” Phichit says gently, in the practiced voice honed over many years of seeing Yuuri’s anxiety at work. “Just move your plans up a little bit. You’ll get to work things out earlier than expected, and that’ll be good for you both.”

Yuuri feels like he’s about to throw up, but he starts talking instead.

“PhichittheressomethingyoushouldknowaboutVictor—” he tries. _Too fast._ “There’s—I need to tell you something. About Victor.”

Phichit’s expression softens. “You mean how he’s in love with someone?”

Yuuri gapes. “How did you—”

His friend waves his hand absently. “Yuuri, the guy isn’t exactly subtle. It’s kind of impossible _not_ to read into the lyrics he’s been posting all throughout this year. Especially after you put the idea into my head that they might mean something.”

_Didn’t you know? We assumed you knew—_

“I...um...who?” Yuuri scrambles, grabbing his water bottle and dragging it to his chapped lips.

Phichit shrugs. “There are a couple of theories. Some fans are speculating that it’s a Russian actress, some hot TV star he dated two years ago; there was lots of drama back then and she is equally good at the social media thing. The Victophe shippers insist it’s Chris, though I doubt it.” He glances sideways at Yuuri and bites his top lip. “Of course, I think it’s you.”

Yuuri chokes. Phichit claps him on the back, trying to help clear the water from his lungs, but it takes a few minutes of coughing before he can take a full breath again and speak.

“What—”

“—Yuuri, c’mon. I follow both of you on social media and I read _everything_.” Phichit’s lips curve into a half-smile. “You two have been talking to each other, haven’t you?”

Yuuri shakes his head violently, which elicits a _tut-tut_ sound from his friend.

“Do I have to read out examples for you? Because I will,” Phichit says, pulling his phone from his jacket pocket, and now Yuuri is shaking his head so quickly that he can feel the gel in his hair start to crack.

“No no no you don’t—I mean—why didn’t you say something?”

“I haven’t been a hundred percent sure,” Phichit admits. “I mean, I am _now_. The question is, why haven’t _you_ said something? Something direct, I mean. To Victor. With your words.”

Yuuri buries his head in his arms. “S’complicated,” he mumbles into his knees.

“Is it?” Phichit sounds infuriatingly contemplative.

With a long sigh, Yuuri sits back up and starts to talk. He explains the Hot Springs on Ice bet, the photograph, the humiliation of losing so badly. The tentative connection in the lyric posts, escalating steadily throughout the summer and fall; the things that frightened him into blocking Victor; and, finally, Christophe’s explanation a few hours ago. He pulls his phone out of his jacket and opens his text history with Chris, tapping on a recent attachment.

“This is apparently the photograph Victor has,” he says numbly, handing the phone to Phichit. “This is what _he_ remembers.”

Phichit’s eyes widen, and Yuuri can almost see heart-shaped confetti burst out of his pupils. “Yuuri, this is adorable! It just confirms it!”

“It’s...” Yuuri closes his eyes. “It’s a lot to take in, right now. It’s been a long day.” As he says it, he’s slammed with a wave of exhaustion.

“So...? Why not say something? What’s the worst that could happen?” Phichit must see Yuuri tense up at the question, because he quickly supplants it: “Uh, I mean, look, things are awkward, but it’ll all be okay! Victor’s—”

He’s interrupted as the stairwell door bangs open, revealing Celestino Cialdini’s genial face. “There you are!” he says to Phichit, before his eyes sweep over to Yuuri. “Hello, Yuuri! Congratulations on your placement; I have to say, whatever Yakov’s doing, it’s working like gangbusters,” he says, and Yuuri returns his wide smile with a composed one.

“Ciao-ciao!” Phichit’s voice is chipper. “Sorry about that; we were just catching up. Do you need something?”

“Yeah, there’s a sponsor I want you to meet and he’s only here for another half hour.”

Phichit’s eyes flick over to Yuuri, who nods. “Go,” he says. “We’ll hang out tomorrow.”

As Phichit follows Celestino out of the stairwell, he turns back for just a second. “Think about it,” he says softly. “I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at what happens.”

And then the door slams shut, and Yuuri is alone in the gloom.

 

 

Christophe Giacometti  
  
**Chris Giacometti (6:39pm):** Victor, there’s something you should know  
  
**Chris Giacometti (6:39pm):** about Yuuri  
  
**Victor Nikiforov (6:42pm):** I don’t want to talk about that, Chris.  
  
**Chris Giacometti (6:43pm):** He doesn’t remember the banquet. At all.   
  
**Victor Nikiforov (6:43pm):**...are you serious?  
  
**Chris Giacometti (6:45pm):** As a heart attack. Back in April I sent him a photo I took of you two and he had some kind of breakdown? I don’t know all the details.  
  
**Victor Nikiforov (6:47pm):** fuck. Jesus fucking Christ.  
  
**Christophe Giacometti (6:48pm):** I explained a little more to him today. Showed him more pictures.   
  
**Christophe Giacometti (6:52pm):** I don’t know what the deal is between you two, and I don’t know if he’s talked to you yet, but I thought you should know.   
  
**Christophe Giacometti (7:04pm):** For what it’s worth, I hope it helps. And I get the feeling I should apologize, though I’m not exactly sure for what. So... I’m sorry.

  


 

**(The next morning)**

A promise is a promise.

Victor wakes up on the second day of the Cup of China with a spearing headache and a sour taste in his mouth that can only come from a night of very desperate drinking. His alarm is beeping at him and he shuts it off with a groan, pushing himself up from the mattress with shaky but determined arms. Slowly, so as not to set off hangover vertigo, Victor swings his legs over the side of the bed and sits up, reaching blindly for the bottle of aspirin that Drunk Victor kindly left him on the nightstand and swallowing two of the pills dry.

Victor is Russian, twenty-seven years old, and in near-top physical shape; and yet as much as he drinks to forget, he never quite manages to do so. It’s a doubly frustrating situation because of his scatterbrained tendencies when sober, which lead him to—for instance—completely forget that he promised to choreograph Yuri Plisetsky’s Senior debut, and then jet off to Japan and completely fuck up _everything._

In retrospect, the decision to keep coaching Yuri was the wrong one. Victor should have handed the reins back to Yakov, choreographed Yuri’s routines, and watched as the Russian Punk shot up through the Grand Prix like an epoch-ending meteor. Victor should have taken the year off, and done… what? Something. Whatever it is that relatively wealthy and internationally recognized 27-year-old athletes do. Be bored, probably. But Victor should have done that.

Maybe he should have gone back to skating. He’d have been a few months late in terms of starting practice for the season, but he would have caught up perfectly fine, and would now be ahead of the pack where he belongs. Every fucking person on the planet has been breathlessly falling over themselves to remind Victor that this was probably the last year he’d be able to compete seriously. He should have accepted this fact and done one last year of skating, even if he wasn’t inspired.

Except, no. Because the real should-have is the most painful truth: he should have stayed in Japan. Victor had already made up his mind before the Hot Springs on Ice tournament had even begun, and he had banked on the results being close enough that he could favour Yuuri Katsuki without much fuss. He’d been so confident that his mere presence had improved the poor guy’s self-confidence; but Victor had been catastrophically wrong, and by the time all was said and done he had trapped himself in a catch-22 that screwed someone over no matter what.

A promise is a promise. Victor had promised to coach the winner of the tournament, and the winner had been Yuri Plisetsky.

Victor had wanted to stay, to play it all off as a joke, but that wouldn’t have been fair. To renege on the deal and stay in Japan would have tanked Victor’s reputation and enraged the Russian skating community—the people Victor called family. It would have cast a pall on Yurio’s Senior debut, no matter how high he scored; the story would always be tainted by the fact that, right at the start of the season, the Russian Punk had been betrayed by his former rinkmate. And even though there’s no earthly reason why he should know this fact for sure, deep down Victor realized that Yuuri would probably have rejected him if he’d stayed. It would have looked like pity, and it would have made Yuuri feel even worse.

Victor had wanted to stay in Japan, to flaunt the rules of the contest he had made, but it wouldn’t have been right to be so selfish.

A promise is a promise. Victor promised Yurio that he’d coach him to a Grand Prix win. He has now also patiently explained that a silver at Yurio’s very first senior event—in his very first _year_ as a senior skater—is better than almost anyone could ever hope to do. He has promised that Rostelecom will be a gold.

A promise is a promise. Victor promised Georgi’s associate coach that he’d oversee the Cup of China, even as he held a trembling hand in his coat pocket.

With a groan Victor grabs his phone and opens Instagram, wincing as the words slowly resolve themselves from random squiggles into proper letters. He starts to scroll back through his history.

Getting the notification that Yuuri was following him again had made Victor happier and more hopeful than he’d felt in—well, weeks, probably, but it had felt like years. That jubilation had lasted right until the moment that Victor had seen Yuuri on the ice yesterday, when the many promises he’d made had come crashing down on his head all at once.

Yuuri had been incredible. Victor recognized his own choreography, but barely recognized the man executing the movements with such fluidity and confidence. The steely expression on Yuuri’s face, the _hint_ of a raised arm in the triple loop—it had been stunning, and more than worthy of first place. Yuuri had well and truly seduced him at last; and then, as he’d skated towards the rink barrier, the crowd had spotted Victor, and everything had gone straight to hell.

It’s been at least sixteen hours since the short programs, but Victor’s hand still tingles from the phantom contact points of Yuuri’s wrist, and his heart flutters and pounds against his chest in the place where Yuuri’s palm had rested. Yuuri had looked so beautiful and been so _real_ that Victor had frozen, falling deep into Yuuri’s eyes, and before he knew it Yakov appeared out of nowhere and whisked Yuuri away to the kiss and cry and then he was gone. Victor had totally zoned out during Georgi’s performance, only barely registering the score; as soon as it had been acceptable for him to leave, he had found the nearest bar and ensconced himself in a corner with as much vodka as possible.

Victor stops scrolling through his feed. He’s found what he’s looking for.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[The Night We Met, by Lord Huron](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtlgYxa6BMU)_       **11h ago  
** “I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you  
Take me back to the night we met  
I don't know what I'm supposed to do, haunted by the ghost of you  
Oh, take me back to the night we met...”

 

Victor sighs, guilt wrenching in his gut. He’d been five drinks in when Chris had texted him, throwing his whole worldview for a loop.

_Yuuri doesn’t remember the banquet. At all._

Things had started to make more sense, which had led Victor to drowning that logic in more alcohol. Yuuri’s shyness, his discomfort with Victor, his apparent innocence about the concept of Eros—it now clicked. Yuuri had lost the Hot Springs on Ice tournament because Victor had failed him, but in a different way than Victor had initially assumed.

He can’t quite be sure, but he feels the ache behind his eyes and wonders if it’s because he fell asleep crying.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Say it Once, by Glass Pear](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwauwpLFbfA)_       **9h ago  
** “Don't allow your heart  
To accept a prison  
Cause you took my heart  
And you gave it vision  
  
Cause every feeling that you've lost  
Is waking up inside you  
And every dream you've cast away  
Is coming back to find you...”

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[Drop in the Ocean, by Ron Pope](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clEVXbfrRYE)_      **8h ago  
** “Still I can't let you be  
Most nights I hardly sleep  
Don't take what you don't need from me  
  
It's just a drop in the ocean  
A change in the weather  
I was praying that you and me might end up together”

 

The entire night, Victor drank until words stopped looking like words, and he only posted one single reply:

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[12AM, by August Hotel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkw2FucUTu8)_      **7h ago  
** “You do this to yourself, you know  
You keep yourself awake  
You're crying yourself to sleep again  
Every night this week  
You walk until you're sober  
Then you stumble into bed  
Words have lost all meaning  
She echoes in your head.”

 

 _Yikes,_ Victor thinks. _That’s going to be confusing to him. Thanks, Drunk Victor, you lovesick idiot._ He deletes the post.

But he can’t deny that the words are true.

Victor’s phone beeps again, this time a text from Georgi wondering where the hell he is. Victor screws his eyes shut and slumps over, his posture atrocious, and he takes a small amount of pleasure in telling his inner skater voice to shut the fuck up about it. He doesn’t want to leave this hotel room, except maybe to hop on a plane back to St. Petersburg so he can go hug his dog. He doesn’t want to have to pretend everything is all right, because it’s not. Everything sucks, it’s all Victor’s own damn fault, and there’s nothing he can do except endure the torture of close proximity to Yuuri for the next day and a half. Victor cringes at the realization that he’s about to inflict even more hurt and confusion that he won’t be able to clearly explain, and that by the time he gets the chance it’ll probably be too late.

_You do this to yourself, you know._

A promise is a promise. Victor promised Yuuri he’d be his new coach, and when that had fallen apart he had promised Yakov a truly absurd amount of money in order to go to Japan.

A promise is a promise. Victor promised Yakov the opportunity to train _the next Victor Nikiforov_ , and he’d meant it. Team Russia could handle a year without Yakov, especially since he’d been trying to spread out the work among the associate coaching team anyway; Yuuri, at 23 years old, is at a pinch point in his career. Victor desperately promised to abide by any terms Yakov laid down in order for the deal to go through, because Yuri Plisetsky isn’t Victor’s successor; Yuuri Katsuki is.

Victor buries his face in his hands and sighs.

A promise is a promise. And as a condition of the coaching agreement, as punishment or penance for what he wrought, Victor promised Yakov that he would stay away from Yuuri entirely.

 

On the morning of the free skate, Yuuri wakes up at 4:30 am. He’s starting to think he’ll never be able to sleep in again.

It’s not the worst thing to happen, though, because he’s one of the first people at the arena for the public practice in the morning. Yuuri puts his earbuds into his ears, tries to pretend that he’s completely alone on the ice, and hits Play on the Slavonich March. As the routine begins and he marks the movements as warmup, Yuuri can’t help but feel an itch, like he wants to crawl out of his skin—out of this situation, maybe out of his life.

His heart spikes with anxiety as the music reaches its frantic climax, and he skids to a stop. Yuuri never got up the courage to ask Yakov about his lowered performance component score; as far as Yakov is concerned, the total numbers are all that matter, and in that respect Yuuri is golden. But he’s tiptoed around the free skate ever since the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship, avoiding giving it full effort.

Yuuri knows it’s a really stupid idea, but he pulls his phone out of his pocket and switches over to the folk song he found the day after the Championship—the one that sort of fits his free skate. He lets it blast into his ears, heart rate slowing to match the thudding beat of the drum; he experiments with a few elements, marking out a raised-arm triple toe loop and some choreographic footwork. The same moves, but different music; it doesn’t entirely work, but it makes him feel better.

_I wonder what Victor would think._

There’s no way around the thought process, and so Yuuri doesn’t fight it.

_Victor’s in love with someone._

He ends up skating to the song for an hour and a half before Yakov shows up and the practice begins in earnest. When Yuuri goes back to the Slavonich March, he can’t help but mentally plot out the choreography to the alternate song; he tries to let it hum under his skin like a secret, but eventually he surrenders his focus entirely to Tchaikovsky’s insistent military tune.

 _Please let this be enough_ , he thinks. _Please let me feel something when I skate today._

And then he sees a flash of silver-blonde hair at the other end of the rink, and suddenly feelings are the last thing he wants.

 

**(The Senior Men’s Free Skate)**

Phichit has just left the kiss and cry when Yuuri slips into the locker room, huddling over his phone. He abandons pretense and just goes straight to Victor’s account on Instagram, heart leaping with joy at the notification that _you and @v-nikiforov follow each other_ , but there’s no new lyric post, no update, not even a photo of Georgi’s performance.

Maybe an apology isn’t enough. Yuuri thinks of Victor’s crestfallen face when they made eye contact yesterday at the short program; he thinks of all the lyrics Victor has posted in the past few weeks. _There ain’t no one like you. You can't help who you love. You are everything I ever wanted._ _I'm nervous when we meet._

Yuuri feels the knot in his heart clench. He checks the time; there’s just a few minutes until he has to skate the March; then, no matter the result, there’s a semiformal dinner tonight celebrating the conclusion of the Cup of China. After that, Yuuri won’t see Victor until Rostelecom—and that’s only if he scores high enough in the free skate to even advance there.

This literally might be Yuuri’s only chance.

 _The question is, why haven’t_ you _said something?_

Yuuri wouldn’t know what to say. He can speak in the language of skating and music and movement, but he’s tongue-tied when left to his own devices.

_Why haven’t you said something?_

_What can I do? (Maybe impress you with a song.)_

_Maybe. Maybe._

And now, Victor’s voice: _You have to do the opposite of what people expect. How else will you surprise them?_

What’s the opposite of what Victor would expect?

What do people expect from Yuuri? He’s quiet. He’s shy, unless you get sixteen glasses of champagne into him. He comes off as sexless, mousy, insecure, compact.

But Yuuri surprised the world when he embodied Eros. He surprised Victor with seductive lyrics. Victor likely expects an apology from Yuuri. He likely expects more slinky, sexy songs, because that’s been the pattern: Yuuri has posted seduction, and Victor has posted love. So he probably doesn’t expect—

_Oh._

Inspiration zaps through him. An idea so outlandish, so ridiculous, so _good_ that Yuuri’s fingers start tapping his phone before he can stop himself. He creates another lyric post, but saves it as a draft, so it can be published with one hit of a button.

A different type of song; a hopeful, joyous, intricate, energetic thing, filled with promise and emotion and the most direct question he can possibly ask. It’s a song Victor would send—an emotion Victor would feel. Yuuri can only hope it’s enough.

_Victor Victor Victor._

The plan is in place, and it’s all he can do for now. It’s time to steel himself for the free skate. Yuuri puts his phone in the locker and closes it with a satisfying metallic _bang,_ setting off down the hallway towards the ice.

_You have to do the opposite of what people expect. How else will you surprise them?_

He stops in his tracks. _Actually, hold on._

_He can speak the language of skating and music and movement—_

Maybe Yuuri can do something else.

 

Of all the things that Russian athletes are taught, by far the most successful and insidious is the public mask. Intensive training doesn’t just involve quads and spins; it involves public speaking, decorum, and the explicit understanding that the genial, calm, and professional demeanour must be maintained at all times. Whatever is happening in your personal life should never ever show on your face. The compartmentalization is intense, ruthless, and unforgiving.

After about two decades of it, Victor has become a good soldier—one of the best Russia’s ever had. He has mastered the art of smiling through pain, and has even come to a sort of peace with it; he can compartmentalize things enough to know that it’s unhealthy, and he can even put the unhealthy parts into a compartment of their own. So as he watches Georgi’s free skate, Victor knows that his face doesn’t betray anything he’s truly feeling, and he can take small comfort in it. He pulls out his phone.

It’s always been easier for Victor to communicate his feelings through music; it’s part of what makes his skating so powerful. Lesser coaches and uninspired skaters often forget that the choice of music will make or break a routine; you can have flawless, crowd-pleasing choreography, but the right piece of music is the thing that will turn those movements into a piece of art. It’s part of what made Victor fall in love with Yuuri Katsuki; Yuuri, like Victor, talks to the world and to himself through music. Lyrics become voice, and melody becomes body—the sacrament of the emotional audiophile. Music bypasses rational thought and taps into something viscerally primal—a well of emotion that can bring you to tears or make you scream to the heavens with joy.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post –[Young Blood, by Noah Kahan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJoDhvHAcr8)_      **Just Now  
** “If you want I could tell the truth  
That this life takes a toll on you  
I spend nights stitching up the loose threads of my soul  
And in the morning I’m bulletproof”

 

Even though he’s only done it once before, Victor can’t help but feel like sending Yuuri an encouraging lyric before he skates is something of a tradition now.

He sits with Georgi in the kiss and cry, and the score is announced. Outwardly, Victor puts on a show of being supportive of his rinkmate, but when he goes to put an arm around Georgi’s shoulders it is abruptly knocked away.

 _Fine._ His smile gets a little bit wider.

As Yuuri and Yakov walk out to the rink entrance area, Victor ducks out into the hallway. Georgi, sullen and moody, has already signalled his intentions to leave the rink and go back to the hotel, probably to drown his own sorrows in his alcohol of choice (rum, if Victor remembers correctly, because _of course_ it’s rum). Victor considers joining in, but then he hears the announcer say Yuuri’s name and his feet pull him back to the rink.

He stands off to the side, a few dozen feet away from the coach’s area, and as Yuuri skates out to the middle of the rink Victor turns his head and makes direct eye contact with Yakov.

Victor has known Yakov Feltsman for nearly fifteen years. He’s seen the man more than he has his own family; Yakov has been a coach, father, teacher, disciplinarian, agent, and was beginning to be a friend, before Victor’s little adventure in Japan. He knows the man’s face and expressions better than he knows himself, and right now Yakov’s expression is one of steely warning. _Don’t be an idiot,_ it says. So Victor stares right back, trying as hard as he can to wordlessly communicate the fact that _I’m not._

_I know what I’m doing._

Yakov arches an eyebrow. _Do you?_

Yuuri strikes his initial pose, and in the heartbeat before the music begins Victor knows that he is, in fact, being an idiot. _Just the free skate,_ he vows. _That’ll be it._ Then he’ll go back to the hotel and lock himself in his bedroom for the next few hours; he’ll put in a cursory appearance at the semiformal dinner tonight, which is all but mandatory for competitors and coaches to attend. Victor will stay sober and alert and tightly controlled, and then as soon as possible he will leave and go back to St. Petersburg and steel himself for Rostelecom as best he can. He’ll send Yuuri a direct message tonight, he decides. He’ll explain himself, but only after he’s safely far enough away that he won’t grab that gorgeous jerk and kiss him breathless.

The next eighteen hours are going to be extraordinarily difficult, but Victor feels his public mask lock into place and he knows he can do it. He’s smiled through press conferences while relatives lay dying in the hospital and he’s won gold medals while his heart was broken.

Eighteen hours, give or take whatever time he and Georgi actually leave for the airport.

_I can do this._

  
**(About four minutes later)**

“Katsuki’s planned a quadruple toe loop as his final jump, and—i-it’s a quadruple flip!”

Victor claps a gloved hand over his mouth.

“He fell, but there appeared to be enough rotations!”

_Fuck. I can’t do this._

**  
(That night)**

“Silver medalist Katsuki Yuuri” sounds strange in his head, but he has to admit, there’s a nice ring to it. It mildly helps distract Yuuri from the fact that his performance component score was, again, below what he expected, which is what knocked him out of the top spot. But then Yuuri looks across the table to see Phichit’s beaming face, and he genuinely can’t be mad or upset. Seeing his best friend win gold is almost as good as winning it himself.

Plus, he has much scarier things to tackle.

The dinner isn’t as formal as the GPF banquet, and the alcohol doesn’t flow as freely—and thank god, because Yuuri’s about to do something absolutely terrifying and there’s a very fine line between bravado and bonkers when it comes to alcohol’s effect on him. He wasn’t planning on drinking anything, but seeing Victor enter the room and take his seat two tables over makes Yuuri reach for the nearest bottle. He pours half a glass of red wine and downs it in one smooth gulp, earning a raised eyebrow from Phichit, which he ignores.

Victor hasn’t made eye contact. _Has he noticed me?_ Yuuri tries to stare as discreetly as possible; he watches Victor pour a glass of wine and take a few sips, his face an impassive mask. He says something to Georgi, and Georgi rolls his eyes. Finally, Victor starts looking around the room. He waves to Chris at the next table, nods at a few friends elsewhere, and then—

_Yes._

Blue eyes meet brown, and the world seems to fall away. Every nerve in Yuuri’s body is screaming for him to look away—or to run away—but he doesn’t. He looks at Victor and hopes his face conveys the calm, hopeful confidence he’s trying to feel _._ All he can see in Victor’s eyes is hurt.

_One. Two. Three. Four. Five._

Yuuri’s hand moves to his phone, sitting to the right of his plate, Instagram open and ready. He raises the phone so that Victor can see it’s in his hand; then, with one last meaningful look, Yuuri pushes Post.

Victor’s phone screen lights up with a notification, and Yuuri’s heart races, but he keeps himself steady, breathing calmly, the world around him a muted blur. Yuuri watches Victor unlock his phone and read something on the screen. In his mind Yuuri reads along with him.  
  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post –[m’lover, by Kishi Bashi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJy2R31xpl8)_      **20s ago  
** “I want to say what lovers say to you  
I want to feel what lovers feel with you  
I want to do with you  
The songs that matter the way we used to do  
I want to do what lovers do with you  
I want to walk the edge of the earth with you  
I want to say it to you, the minute we feel the heat:  
Would you be my lover?”

 

And then Victor abruptly stands up, nearly knocking his chair over, and walks as quickly as he can towards the dining room doors.

The world comes crashing back in a wave of sound and motion. Yuuri feels himself rise, leaving his napkin on top of his still-full plate. Yakov, sitting with his back to Victor’s table and the dining room doors, puts a hand on Yuuri’s forearm: “Where are you going? We need to talk.”

Yuuri stops, dragging his eyes away from the doors that are now falling shut, and scrambles for the first excuse he can think of. “Sorry,” he hears himself mumble. “I’m not feeling well.”

Yakov grunts. “It was a mistake to try the shellfish.”

As soon as he is released, Yuuri walks away as calmly as he can, his field of vision narrowed to the dining room doors, and he slips in between tables and dodges waiters while focused on a singular goal: Victor. Victor. _Victor._

Yuuri slips out of the dining room and sees Victor about ten feet away, still walking at a brisk pace, and he almost has to jog in order to keep from losing him.

“Victor!” the name leaves Yuuri’s lips unbidden, echoing through the hall. Victor pauses for half a second, tilting his head and bringing his fingers up to his ear. Then he starts walking again, maybe a hair slower than before; he whips around a corner and down another hallway, this one darkened and empty. Yuuri walks as quickly as he dares, shoes beating muffled _thumps_ on the floor runner, and he sees Victor stop at the bank of elevators and furiously punch the Up button.

“Please wait—”

Victor turns around. He’s holding his phone in one hand, earbuds crammed into his ears; the look in his eyes is unlike anything Yuuri’s ever seen before.

Yuuri realizes he’s frozen in place; he tries to say something but his throat refuses to behave. Finally, _finally,_ after the longest thirty seconds of his life, he manages to croak out: “ _Victorimsorry_ —”

 _Ding._ The doors slide open behind Victor. Yuuri feels his shoulders crumple as Victor steps backwards into the elevator, his eyes never once leaving Yuuri’s face. Still staring, still unreadable, still so achingly beautiful.

Yuuri makes a snap decision and dives for the elevator, the doors hissing shut behind him. Victor doesn’t make any move to stop him or make him leave; he has pressed the button for the eighteenth floor, and Yuuri flinches as the elevator lurches upward. The display panel counts the floors with agonizing slowness.

_2...3..._

Silence permeates the space, threatening to suffocate Yuuri; he risks a sideways glance at Victor and sees him staring resolutely at a spot on the floor, hands gripping the metal railing so hard that his knuckles are white. The earbuds are still in his ears, and Yuuri has no idea if Victor’s actually listening to anything or if he’s just employing the now-universal signal that he does not want to talk. Yuuri’s mouth opens but words die in his throat just as quickly as they rise, and his lips form soundless movements like a prayer.

_8...9...10..._

There isn’t even corny muzak to lend some humour to the scene; all Yuuri can hear is his pulse pounding in his ears, and his heart lurches with anxious vertigo, as if he’s just looked down from a very great height.

_15...16...17..._

_Ding._

The doors slide open to reveal another hallway, this one lined with hotel room doors. Yuuri’s eyes widen as he sees the richness of the carpets and the ornate stamped tin ceiling; this floor is _much_ nicer than the one he’s staying on. Victor again takes off at a speedy pace, only acknowledging Yuuri’s presence with a glance so quick that Yuuri nearly misses it entirely. He stays two steps behind Victor as they stalk past door after door, until finally Victor slows and stops in front of one, and Yuuri leaps forward just enough for his fingertips to glance off of Victor’s shoulder.

Victor visibly stiffens at the touch, and Yuuri snatches his hand back as if it’s been burned. Victor turns, shining eyes searching Yuuri’s face in quick little darting motions, face so pale it doesn’t seem real. Yuuri realizes he has no plan, no script, no fucking idea what to do or say.

“Victor, I—”

He’s cut off as Victor grabs Yuuri’s face in both hands and kisses him.

_Oh._

Three things happen to Yuuri in rapid succession. First, shock radiates through him, because this isn’t real and he’ll wake up any second now. Then his eyes close and his hands move of their own accord, curling around Victor’s neck; and then he feels a shiver run down Victor’s spine and _oh my god this is real._ Victor pulls away by an inch, leaving their foreheads pressed together; Yuuri draws in a shuddering breath he had no idea he needed, and suddenly it all hits home and he crashes into Victor again.

It’s hot and desperate and explosively real as Victor’s long fingers curve around the back of Yuuri’s head and entwine themselves in his hair, pulling him closer. Yuuri feels Victor’s tongue flick at his lips and he responds in kind, and suddenly he wants nothing more than to take off every stitch of clothing he’s wearing. But first, groveling.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps as they part for air. “I’m so sorry, Victor, I was such an id—”

“—yes,” Victor blurts at nearly the same time. “Yes. Yes yes _yes._ Fuck. Yes.”

Yuuri’s brain stops dead as he tries and fails to process that reaction, but Victor grins a megawatt smile and pulls his earbuds up from where they’ve fallen to the floor. Now Yuuri can hear the tinny but unmistakable sound of Kishi Bashi’s frenetic joy: “ _I want to do with you, the songs that matter the way we used to do...”_

“Yes,” Victor says again in a throaty whisper.

_OH._

Yuuri grabs the lapels of Victor’s jacket and pulls him in for another kiss, standing on tiptoe for a better angle. Every explanation and apology flies out of his head, replaced with the freewheeling sensation of flight, of falling, of being caught in midair. Time stops. His whole body tingles. Every goddamn cliche comes true.

Victor breaks the kiss and ducks his head ever so slightly, and Yuuri inhales the scent of his hair before Victor nips at his jaw and turns the breath into a sharp gasp. Victor continues, kissing along Yuuri’s jawline and then to his eyelids, his forehead, the bridge of his nose, and each side of his mouth, drawing an impatient noise from Yuuri.

Victor nods to the door now directly behind him. “Come in?” he asks in a rasp. “Y-you don’t have to—”

A keening moan escapes from Yuuri’s throat; he kisses Victor again, and now his feet are moving and he wants more and more and _more,_ and he doesn’t realize he’s backed Victor up against the door until his hands hit the ornate wood.

“I’ll take that as a yes—”

“—would you just _unlock_ the door already—”

It takes Victor three tries to obey, in part because he never stops kissing Yuuri, but they finally stumble inside together, nearly tripping as they try to remove shoes and socks. Yuuri lets Victor lead him through the dark, and a million things seem to be happening all at once: his tentative backwards steps, the heat of Victor’s tongue on his, Yuuri’s fingers searching for the buttons of Victor’s shirt, running his hands across the muscles underneath and _holy shit is he made of fucking marble what even is this?_ Dozens of songs fly through Yuuri’s head to create a cacophonous mental soundtrack of thudding drums that strike in time with the beating of his heart and the hitched breaths Victor keeps drawing whenever Yuuri touches his bare chest. Victor divests Yuuri of his own shirt and he suppresses a violent shiver when Victor leans down and scrapes his teeth gently against Yuuri’s collarbone while fumbling with Yuuri’s belt, _far_ too fucking slowly.

With an impatient growl Yuuri pushes Victor’s hands away to finish the task himself; he’s still kicking off his left pant leg when he goes to do the same for Victor, only to be stopped by a hand closing gently around his wrist.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes, and the sound of his name makes Yuuri roll his hips against Victor’s, erections pressing against fabric and eliciting gasps from them both.

“Victor—”

“Are you sure you want to—”

Yuuri wraps a hand around Victor’s tie and pulls him close, pressing their foreheads together. “I can’t think of any song lyrics off the top of my head right now but for the love of _god_ please fuck me.”

Victor loses the entire English language, gasping out something in Russian as Yuuri makes quick work of his belt and pants. Final items of clothing are shed as they move again, step by step, until Yuuri feels the bed hit the back of his knees. He shifts himself backwards across the mattress until his head hits the pillows; he then sees Victor actually goddamn _crawl_ on all fours like a cat, and the sight alone is almost enough to short-circuit Yuuri’s brain, never mind the heartstopping moment when Victor rolls his hips against Yuuri’s, their naked cocks sliding against each other for the first time. Yuuri groans, arousal coursing through every nerve ending, and grabs roughly at Victor’s ass, pulling him even closer; in response Victor gasps against his skin, teeth scraping against flesh.

Yuuri is consumed with want and he whimpers something, possibly in English, to which Victor responds by pulling back and flashing a wolfish grin. He leans over to rummage in the bedside table drawer for a minute before starting to kiss down Yuuri’s neck and chest, so slowly Yuuri thinks he might literally die. Victor’s tongue swipes across his nipple and Yuuri lets out something halfway between a gasp and a yelp. He hears Victor chuckle.

“That’s good to know,” he murmurs playfully, licking again and eliciting the same reaction before moving on, down Yuuri’s stomach, kissing and nipping while his hands trace the line of Yuuri’s hipbones, up and down, _so close_ to his cock and then moving away at the last minute. Yuuri tries to stop from squirming with arousal and impatience, literally shaking from the effort, and then Victor’s lips lightly brush against the head of his cock and Yuuri completely loses his composure, hands grabbing fistfuls of the sheets as Victor licks up the length of his cock and then sucks him into his mouth.

Yuuri arches against the bed, head thrown back, mouth gaping open. Victor sucks dick like he skates: confidently, expertly, with infinite patience and a downright _unfair_ level of skill. Yuuri hears a bottle cap snap open, and Victor stops blowing him just before he totally loses control ; then nimble fingers are tracing and touching, closer and closer, until— _god,_ yes—a fingertip gently circles his hole, and then rests there. Yuuri squirms and grinds down, and he hears an evil chuckle, lips humming against the head of his cock; then Victor swallows him whole, and at the same time slips his finger inside, and Yuuri nearly comes right then and there, barely pulling back from the edge . Victor takes his time opening Yuuri up, first with one finger and then two, curling them inwards _just right_ , and Yuuri’s trembling all over and whispering _onegai_ over and over again in Japanese because he’s literally forgotten the English word— _is it pleat? Pledge? Pleasur-ohgod—_

“—Please,” Yuuri almost sobs. “Victor _please_ —”

Victor withdraws his hand, and Yuuri breathes into the curiously empty feeling as he hears a foil packet being opened and Victor moaning under his breath, just a little bit, as he slicks himself up with lube. Yuuri drags a pillow under his hips; Victor crawls back up until they’re face to face, bracing himself on one arm, eyes glittering in the dark, and Yuuri nods. Victor leans down to kiss Yuuri gently, cock lined up at his entrance, and after a single moment’s pause he gently, slowly, pushes in.

Yuuri breaks the kiss, gasping, and Victor stops.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Yuuri hisses. “It’s... been a while.”

“We don’t have to—”

“—no, god, _please_ do,” he moans. “Feels so good.” He tries to breathe as silently as he can as Victor moves again, inch by burning inch, until he’s bottomed out and they both exhale in shudders.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Victor chokes out, burying his face into Yuuri’s neck. “ _Yuuri_.”

Yuuri swallows. “Victor,” he whispers back, trying to put even half of the luxurious desire into the name as Victor just did with his own. He gives an experimental roll of his hips and Victor gasps, teeth grazing Yuuri’s shoulder, but he takes the hint and starts to move. It takes him three thrusts before Victor finds the right angle, hitting Yuuri’s prostate, and stars explode across his eyes. As they quicken the pace Yuuri realizes that he’s either babbling complete nonsense or just opening and closing his mouth like a fish, helpless and desperately out of breath. As Victor’s hips snap in relentless rhythm, Yuuri feels like he might lose his entire fucking mind—like any barrier between him and this bed might disappear, like his head is filling with a blank white void whose edges reach beyond his peripheral vision. He’s vaguely aware that Victor is making the _filthiest_ sounds in his ear, and he’s teetering on the precipice of the longest possible fall, and...and—

“Victor I’m—”

“Yuuri, _god_ —”

Yuuri whites out as he comes, the blank void exploding like a supernova behind his eyes, and two short thrusts later he feels Victor come as well, a moan escaping from his lips; and he collapses onto Yuuri’s chest, slick with sweat. Yuuri doesn’t realize he’s dug his nails into Victor’s back until his fingers begin to ache, and he slowly straightens them. Victor carefully slips out of him and goes to dispose of the condom; Yuuri grabs a handful of tissues to clean off his stomach and then lies back, aftershocks shuddering through him with every breath, and he still has no sense of time so it’s both an eon and an instant later when he feels Victor slip into the bed beside him, wrapping his arms around Yuuri’s chest.

Yuuri blinks, eyes finally focusing again, and looks over to meet Victor’s own.

“Hey,” Victor murmurs, his smile warm and bright, and Yuuri can’t help but smile back.

“Hey,” he rasps.

Victor leans over and kisses him. “Can you think of any lyrics now?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO. YEAH. Yup. 
> 
> Housekeeping notes!  
> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://little-lost-star-1.tumblr.com), where I post silly things and also excerpts and quotes from chapters as I work on them.  
> \- I'm now also on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri), with a brand new account which I'll try to use as much as Tumblr.  
> \- The insanely talented [Saniika](http://saniika.tumblr.com/) has now drawn two pieces of art for this fic, one for [Chapter 10](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) and one for [Chapter 11](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by). Please go give her some love because she's the best.  
> \- **UPDATE:** Saniika has now also drawn art for [this chapter](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the).  
>  \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10, which can be seen [here!!](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right)  
> (if you want to do art of this story or something, btw, go for it! I'm so fucking jazzed people read this and like it enough to do this kinda stuff, it blows my mind)  
> \- Text message templates courtesy of [this tutorial.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6434845/chapters/14729722)


	13. Set My World Into a Blaze Again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello pals! Thank you all for your incredibly kind words, your all-caps freakouts, and your patience. Welcome to the second half(ish?) of Setting Sun. This chapter contains fewer major setpieces, but I really love it anyway and I think you will too. Let me know what you think! <3 <3 I love you all.
> 
> Follow along with the whole soundtrack:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

As a younger teenager gaining steady fluency in English, Phichit Chulanont once read a young adult fantasy series in which the female protagonist reached into a fire to fill herself up with magic, as much as her body could handle, until she literally glowed with the fire beneath her skin. That’s how Phichit feels right now, as the number of minutes since Yuuri and Victor abruptly left the dining room (a metric he has dubbed “Yexit”) ticks over into a full hour; he can feel the tension humming throughout his entire body, and he has to keep looking down at his forearm to make sure he’s not literally glowing like a beacon, broadcasting to the entire room that _oh my god Yuuri and Victor left at basically the same time and they’ve been gone for an hour and… seven minutes. And counting._

Phichit is stunned that no one else in the room seems to have made the connection that was so glaringly clear to him, but skaters are occasionally self-absorbed creatures, and by this time of night the booze has started to flow a little more easily. He sits, frozen in place between Ciao-Ciao and Yakov goddamn Feltsman, afraid to get up lest it trigger a thought process in either coach of _hey wait a second where’s Yuuri, and also where is Victor?_ Phichit can’t put his finger on why, but he knows in his gut that Yakov knowing about Yuuri and Victor is not a great idea.

An hour and twelve minutes and thirty-one seconds. It’s entirely possible that neither of them are coming back. On the one hand, _fuck yes_ , but on the other hand, _oh no._

Phichit feels the urgent, nervous fire beneath his skin, which roars to life as Yakov starts looking around the ballroom with a narrowed gaze.

“Poor Yuuri,” Phichit says, a hair too loudly. “At least he waited to get sick until after the competition!”

“True,” Celestino drawls, toasting in Phichit’s direction with a nearly-empty martini glass. “Kid always had nerves like wet paper, but he did marvelously today. You’ve done a great job with him, Yakov.”

Yakov rolls his eyes with a grandiosity that deserves an orchestral score. “It wasn’t difficult,” he says bitingly, downing the last of his scotch so that the ice clatters around the tumbler. “Katsuki merely required some… _concrete_ structure to his training.”

Phichit’s eyes widen as he flicks his gaze back to his own coach like he’s following a tennis match. _Oh my god, is this happening?_

Celestino swallows the last olive from his martini and swirls the toothpick around the rim of his empty glass. “His technical element score has greatly improved, yes,” he says dryly. “But technical elements are not the only parts of skating that matter.”

 _Oh boy okay well I guess this is going down for real._ Phichit is simultaneously disappointed that Yuuri isn’t here to witness this conversation and immensely grateful for his absence, because as much as this is the juiciest gossip of all fucking _time,_ he knows his friend would rather melt into the floor than be argued over like this. Yakov scoffs, _actually scoffs,_ and Phichit can almost see the steam starting to escape from the man’s ears.

“Cialdini, if I made you a house out of very beautiful cardboard, would you rely on it to keep you out of the rain?” he asks.

Celestino inhales through his nostrils in a way that Phichit knows means _okay motherfucker, if you want to take on an Italian in an argument then let’s get nuts._ Phichit is keeping a rigorous and detailed mental live-tweet of the greatest thing to ever happen in The Real Coaches of Grand Prix Skating (coming this fall to VH1) but is almost immediately derailed when he sees Yakov looking around again. In fact, he’s almost about to turn around completely to see Victor’s table with Victor’s empty seat, and—

“Hey!” Phichit says, standing up quickly and grabbing Celestino’s empty martini glass. “I think another round is in order. Coach Feltsman, would you like more scotch?”

Yakov turns back. “You’re too young to drink,” he says, and Phichit laughs precisely as casually as the situation demands.

“I’m of age in Thailand!” he chirps, looking intentionally at his increasingly red-faced coach. “And Ciao-Ciao and I have had a martini or two together before.”

Neither of them seem to be buying it, but then Yakov raises one eyebrow.

“Is it a regular pastime for you to ply your skaters with alcohol, Cialdini?”

Celestino smirks. “Tell me again, Feltsman, how many vodka shots have I seen your students do at previous banquets at which you were also present?”

Phichit’s smile gets a fraction wider. “Come on, I won the Cup of China! I would like to celebrate, and who better to do so with than my coach?” he looks over at Yakov. “… And, uh, my best friend’s coach?”

There’s movement in his peripheral vision as a waiter glides by with an empty tray, and Phichit’s arm shoots out to snag the man’s sleeve, his eyes never once leaving the table.

“What will it be, gentlemen?” Phichit asks, turning now to make direct and pointed eye contact with… Zhang Wei, the nametag says. His new temporary best friend in the world, Zhang Wei, blessed provider of alcohol, first of his name. “I’ll have whatever local beer you’ve got on tap, please.”

“We’ve only got bottles,” he mumbles.

Phichit grins. “Whatever’s your favourite,” he says, with sunshine beaming out of his ass. “Surprise me. Ciao-Ciao, what’s your poison?”

Time slows to a crawl as he waits for a response, but then Celestino nods, turning his attention to Zhang Wei. “A martini, please. Extra dry with three olives, Tanqueray.”

Another marvellous eye roll from Yakov. “McCallan,” he snaps. “A double. Neat this time, your ice melted far too quickly.”

Zhang Wei nods. “Right away,” he says, and as he turns to leave Phichit turns with him, arm slung casually around his shoulder.

“Listen,” he whispers. “I don’t want either of these two to have an empty glass for the rest of the night, alright?” he slips a bill into Zhang Wei’s shirt pocket. “Please. For the gold medalist. I’m, uh, trying to get them to settle an argument.”

Ever the professional, Zhang Wei responds with a sly smile and a quick wink, before disappearing off in the direction of the bar.

Phichit checks his phone as he sits back down at the table. One hour, twenty-one minutes, fifty-one seconds. He lets his attention return back to the metaphorical dick-measuring contest that’s about to go full nuclear right in front of him, and bites the inside of his lip to keep from giggling.

 _Don’t you worry, Yuuri_ , he thinks, imagining his voice floating up through the hotel floors. _I got you, fam._

 

Like any anxious person, the very concept of sex is sometimes kind of horrifying to Yuuri, depending on his state of mind and situation. It’s not that he doesn’t want it or enjoy it—quite the opposite—but when you spend most of your time with a variety of protective mental shields in place it’s a little overwhelming to shed _every_ defense and become intimate with another person. He’s spent more than a few mornings in a dark pit of self-loathing, recoiling from the thought of just how vulnerable and exposed—literally and figuratively—he had been the night before. He’s learned to watch himself for the warning signs of a post-coital crash, but all of his careful mental structures are just sort of irrelevant in the wake of the fact that he’s currently in the roomy, granite-tiled shower in Victor’s hotel room.

Yuuri closes his eyes and tilts his head back, letting the hot water soak his scalp, and breathes in the steam.

_Can you think of any lyrics now?_

He grins. He sure can, although the song that comes to mind at the moment is [Dave Matthews Band](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7in-9E3ImQ): _“Touch your lips just so I know / In your eyes, love, it glows so / I’m bare boned and crazy for you / When you come crash into me, baby…”_

He says a quick prayer of apology to the Music Snobbery Gods, mentally handing over a note that says _Please excuse Yuuri Katsuki from having obscure taste in music today; he just had sex with Victor Nikiforov so his brain is still putting itself back together._ With a soft chuckle Yuuri turns off the water; he dries himself off, wraps a towel around his waist, and then—with only the tiniest of hesitations—opens the bathroom door and walks out.

The room is still dark, which is good because Yuuri knows he’d lose his nerve otherwise. The only source of light comes from the glow of a phone, illuminating Victor’s face with a blue-white hue as he sits in the bed. Yuuri’s breath hitches as Victor looks up and the light bounces off his eyes for just a second.

“Sorry,” he says, waving the phone. “Millennial attention span.”

“Updating Instagram?” Yuuri asks as he slides between the sheets, discarding the towel in one smooth motion.

Victor puts the phone on his bedside table, screen down. “No way in hell,” he chuckles, opening his arms. “C’mere.”

Yuuri obeys, marvelling at the sensation of Victor’s skin and lips against his own. Kissing Victor is still intoxicating, and aftershocks of arousal are still zapping through him. He feels the rising need to say something, to whisper or moan, to reach out and fucking communicate, and his stupid brain finally puts together a coherent question that is entirely in English and with the words in the right order, so Yuuri drags his head back and gulps for air and—

“Can I _please_ get your number?”

Victor’s eyes close, and then open, and he chuckles humourlessly. “So, funny thing about that,” he begins, and he must see Yuuri’s eyes go wide with panic, because he leans in to brush his lips against Yuuri’s cheek. “This was good,” he murmurs. “But... I sort of promised Yakov I’d stay away from you for the rest of the season.”

_Oh._

“...is that why you never texted me?”

Victor chuckles again, this time genuinely, turning on his side to face Yuuri, chin propped up on one fist. “Yakov is not above picking up his students’ phones when they get text messages in the middle of training.”

“Thank god he doesn’t use social media,” Yuuri says, mostly to himself, but Victor nods.

“Lyrics were not the greatest means of communication,” he says. “But I didn’t dare risk texting and getting you in trouble. And I wasn’t sure what you wanted, at first.”

Yuuri thinks for a moment. “Can we private message on Instagram, at least?”

Victor smiles and kisses the tip of Yuuri’s nose. “That’s probably doable,” he replies. “I confess I’d be selfishly upset if you never sent me another lyric post again. Although if _that_ song is the last one you send me, it’s a pretty fantastic finale, if I do say so myself.”

“It’s been fun,” Yuuri admits. Suddenly shy, he starts to fiddle with the edge of the sheet. “So. This... is this—”

Victor stops him with a kiss. “Yuuri, I want this to happen again, many more times. I want to go back to Hasetsu to relax in the baths, skate with you, and eat a _ridiculous_ amount of katsudon,” he says with a wink, making the word sound absolutely filthy, and Yuuri feels himself blush. “But... we have to wait until the Grand Prix is over, probably. That’s the soonest I can get out of my coaching contract with Yurio.”

“You signed a _contract_?”

Victor grins. “That’s what coaches and skaters tend to do, yes,” he teases, and Yuuri purses his lips into a pout. It seems obvious, of course, but Victor had been so casual about the entire idea of coaching paperwork when he’d come to Hasetsu that Yuuri had assumed he took the same laissez-faire approach to everyth—

His eyes widen. Victor cocks an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

“I _just_ figured out why you weren’t concerned with my coaching fees.”

Victor cracks up, and Yuuri does too, laughing softly and sweetly; here, lying side by side, their foreheads tilting forward to rest against each other, it’s all so _easy_ it truly doesn’t seem like it should be real. Yuuri pushes down the whisper of _what if_ that encroaches on the edge of his brain, because if he starts to wonder about what would have been he’ll never ever stop. Instead he lets himself get anxious about the future.

“So what do we do now?”

Victor pulls Yuuri’s head to his chest, and Yuuri closes his eyes and listens for Victor’s heartbeat. _I’ve had this exact dream,_ he realizes.

“How about we make a date?” Victor murmurs into Yuuri’s scalp. “November 22, the last day of the Rostelecom Cup.”

“That’s not quite the end of the Grand Prix,” Yuuri replies drowsily.

“Yeah, true,” Victor replies. “But I don’t want to wait a second longer than I have to.”

Yuuri opens his eyes, staring straight ahead into the dark. “Are you hoping I’ll lose Rostelecom?” he asks, trying to keep his voice steady and playful but failing right at the end. Victor’s cool fingers tilt his chin upwards until they’re eye to eye.

“No,” Victor says softly. “Never.”

Yuuri can’t stop himself from smiling. “I believe you,” he says, and means it.

Victor smiles back. “Good.” He punctuates the word with another kiss. “Now onto the next question: are you staying the night? You’re _most_ welcome to do so.”

Almost every atom in Yuuri’s body screams _yes,_ but his stupid jerk brain has other ideas. “I shouldn’t,” he says. “I want to. But I have a flight tomorrow, and—” he gulps. “—And I’ll be an anxious wreck if I’m not able to make sure I’m packed and ready in my own space.”

This whole being-upfront-about-anxiety thing is a special kind of magic, because instead of rejecting him Victor just grins. “That’s entirely fair,” he says.

“Sorry.” The thought of walking out of this hotel room alone is painful, but the anxiety about tomorrow is more painful. But then Yuuri watches Victor’s face light up with an idea:

“Can I walk you to your hotel room door, then?”

The mental image of it is so innocent and chivalrous in the wake of all the things they’ve just done that it seems ridiculous. Yuuri’s anxiety, slowly awakening from pleasure-induced stupor, stabs at his brain: “What if someone sees us?”

Victor checks his phone. “It’s barely half past nine, believe it or not. Most people we know will still be at the banquet.”

Yuuri slides out of bed and locates his boxers. “What about Yakov?”

“Hmm, let me see if there are photos.” Victor taps his phone, pulls his thumb down to reload something, and then promptly bursts into a fit of giggles, tossing his phone across the bed. Yuuri takes it and sees an Instagram post from Phichit, uploaded five minutes ago; it’s of Yakov and Celestino, both surrounded by empty glasses, slumping over the table. Yakov is frozen in an open-mouthed snarl, a pointed finger captured mid-wag, and Celestino is rolling his eyes so hard that all Yuuri can see is the whites. The image is captioned _“Coach versus Coach face-off round 5, place your bets. #ThisIsBetterThanGold #NotReally #CoachFight #DrinkingContest”_

“What the _fuck_ —”

“I think we’re probably good,” Victor chuckles.

They dress in silence. Yuuri turns his back, shyness creeping across him like a blush, and he lets Victor check the hallway for people before following him out towards the back stairwell. As they descend flight after flight of stairs, Victor talks—about Makkachin, about the weather, maybe about the stock market, but Yuuri isn’t quite sure because at some point Victor reaches back and takes his hand, and from that point onward he can’t do anything except try to memorize every single thing about the situation, just in case he’s still having a ridiculously detailed dream.

They reach Yuuri’s room on the twelfth floor in what seems like an instant; they pass a disinterested maid, a sullen-looking teenager, and are nearly bowled over by a six-year-old wearing a Batman costume (“11/10, Yuuri, would never commit crime on the streets of Gotham again”), but otherwise see no one. As they near his door, Yuuri feels his feet start to drag. _I don’t want this to end._

“Well, here we are,” Victor says with a quiet flourish.

“Yeah,” Yuuri says softly, digging his key card out of his jacket pocket, but instead of tapping it against the reader, he turns around.

“Thank you,” he rasps, and Victor leans in to kiss him again.

“Thank _you,_ ” he replies. “Send me lots of lyrics, and I’ll see you in two weeks. I'll be counting the days.”

“You promise?” Yuuri can hear the skepticism in his own voice, and he briefly wonders if he’s always been this down on himself or if he’s only just noticing now.

Victor touches his forefinger to his sternum, then his belly button, then each shoulder, and Yuuri follows the motion with a hungry gaze. “Cross my heart. And for the record, if you were my skater I’d be physically incapable of keeping you a secret.”

 _If you were my skater._ The implication hangs in the air like a cobweb, sticky and visceral. Victor’s eyes widen as he realizes what he’s said, and Yuuri wants to tell him a million things at once but wouldn’t even know where to start, so instead he leans over and chastely pecks Victor on the cheek like a goddamn teenager. He goes to pull away, but Victor turns and nips Yuuri’s earlobe, his breath tickling the skin and making him shiver all over.

“My Eros,” he whispers, his voice low and thick, and Yuuri feels his eyes roll back into his head as he exhales a quivering breath. “Let’s have a steamy secret affair.”

 _Fuck yes,_ Yuuri thinks, but instead he opens his mouth and hears himself say “Maybe. If you’re very, _very_ good.” _What the hell, brain?_

Victor hums. “And what if I’m very, _very_ bad?” he whispers, to which Yuuri pulls back and grins, confidence now buzzing through him.

“Which do you think would work out better in your favour?”

Victor’s smile is so bright it could overpower the sun. “You’ll just have to surprise me,” he coos, leaning in for one more kiss. “Goodnight, Yuuri.”

“Goodnight, Victor.”

 

Once inside, Yuuri flops onto his bed, right on top of a bunch of clothes and his earbuds, and is rewarded with a sharp poke in the back from his headphone jack. He yanks the cord out and connects it to his phone, scrolling through his music collection.

 _I’ve never been someone’s secret,_ he muses.

Yuuri closes his eyes and arches his back slightly against the sheets. He still has little pockets of pleasure left inside of him, and they send waves of goosebumps up and down his chest as he mentally replays the events of the past few hours. He barely remembers his FS score; skating seems like a thing he did years ago, rather than earlier this afternoon.

Normally the idea of someone asking him to keep their hookup a secret would send him spiralling into paranoia, but Yuuri is still completely blissed out on endorphins, and right now all he can do is close his eyes and remember the noises Victor made.

 _Maybe if you’re very,_ very _good._ He runs a hand through still-damp hair, slicking it back the way he wears it during his short program, and thinks of all the times he’s mentally seduced Victor from the ice. Embodying Eros is _fun._

He opens his eyes, a slow and wicked grin spreading across his face.

_Let’s have a steamy secret affair._

_All right,_ Yuuri mentally replies, opening Instagram. _You asked for it._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Pledge of Allegiance, by Louis XIV](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OffsU3GClhM)_      **Just Now  
** “Milkshake milkshake I love to feel you sweat  
We don't have to go to the pool if you want me to make you wet  
Can you keep a secret?  
‘Cause the best little secrets are kept—  
And you're my best little secret yet.”

 

_Game on, Victor._

Yuuri’s just plugging in his phone when he hears an urgent sharp knocking sound.

_What the hell?_

The knocking comes again, now even faster, and Yuuri nearly trips over his suitcase in his scramble to open the door.

“Sorry, I’m—mmph!” he’s cut off as Victor _flings_ himself into Yuuri, kissing him so hard that it literally takes his breath away. He pulls back, gasping for air. “Victor?”

Victor’s eyes are so full of lust that they very well could have little heart-shaped pupils like a cartoon wolf. He grins, and Yuuri can’t help but think of bared teeth.

“That’s not playing _fair,_ ” he whines playfully, reaching back to push the door closed behind him, and stealing another kiss.

Yuuri cocks an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

Victor pushes him up against the wall, grinding against him, the glint in his eyes downright evil. “This hotel doesn’t even _have_ a pool.” He swoops in for more kisses, rough and needy, and he starts to undo Yuuri’s belt and fly, more deftly this time.

Yuuri pulls back, grinning. “Ah, but I said I _don’t_ need one.”

Victor shoves his hand down Yuuri’s pants and actually fucking _growls._

“Prove it.”

 

The next morning, Yuuri snaps awake bright and early, and sadly alone. He turns on his side and reaches out to the empty half of the bed, resting the back of his hand lightly against the rumpled sheets. A piece of hotel stationery rests on the pillow, which Yuuri holds close to his nose in order to see:

_I’m not abandoning you, but I did forget my phone charger. Instagram me. <3 _

_Of course Victor writes the ‘ <‘ and the ‘3’ manually, that dork, _ Yuuri smirks. He turns over to his bedside table, slipping on his glasses and pulling out his phone. He knows exactly what to post to Instagram, because he’s had it saved as a draft for three months, on the ludicrous off chance that things ever went—well, exactly as they just did.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Ablaze, by School of Seven Bells](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPWJ0MreHeg)_      **Just Now  
** “How could I have known  
The God of my youth would come  
Crashing down on my heart?  
I thought that I knew love  
But love was a scornful thing  
That fed on the fading flame that held  
The world together for me  
And when it died I fell apart  
  
The day we met  
I was a new fire  
Whose heart had been  
Drowning for so long  
When I was dark  
You found a glowing ember  
And set my world  
Into a blaze again.”

 

Yuuri forces himself to wait for a full, terrifying minute before refreshing Instagram, but his efforts are rewarded:

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[I’m Sorry (For Not Finding You Sooner), by The Japandroids](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1VnddkRjaY)_      **22s ago  
** “From every day at dawn  
Through to the dead of night  
I'm sorry for not finding you sooner  
I've been looking for you my whole life.”

 

It takes Yuuri ten minutes to stop grinning like a lunatic.

Fourteen days until they can see each other again. 336 hours. 20,160 minutes. 1,209,600 seconds, give or take a few hundred.

Not that Yuuri’s started counting down or anything.

As he showers and dresses he keeps seeing the numbers flash inside his head, in all sorts of colours and patterns like on a children’s TV show. Fourteen days until he can kiss Victor again. Fourteen days to fantasize and wonder, to shamelessly flirt via lyrics, knowing for sure that his message is being received and understood. Fourteen days to review and recollect and form new ideas about how to drive Victor wild. No big deal.

Yuuri arrives at the hotel’s restaurant just as it opens for breakfast, so he only has to share the buffet line with a harried-looking family of four and a businessman who looks tired enough to see through time. He gathers a plate of food—eggs, fruit, exactly one piece of toast—and a cup of coffee, and while he eats he scrolls through Instagram, catching up on all the photos from the dinner last night. The party got, by all accounts, moderately wild, although the centrepiece of the event was definitely the drinking contest between Celestino and—

“We need to talk,” Yakov grunts from above him, and Yuuri jumps, nearly upending his plate onto his lap. His coach sits down heavily across the table and winces, pinching the bridge of his nose, before grabbing Yuuri’s untouched cup of coffee and taking a repulsively loud sip. Yuuri thanks months of exposure for not flinching at the sound; he’s beginning to think that Yakov does these things on purpose, even when hungover.

“Good morning,” he says, trying to be neutral and hiding a trembling hand beneath the table.

“No,” Yakov says flatly. “It is not. But that’s neither here nor there.”

“Sorry.” Yuuri goes back to his plate, eating his eggs as silently as he can.

“I'm impressed with your work at this competition,” Yakov says eventually. “You would have won gold had you not flubbed that last quad.”

“I know.” _Also my performance components score sucked, but you don’t care about that, and I’m not supposed to either, apparently._

Yakov takes another sip of coffee, this time at normal volume. “Katsuki, I don’t dislike Japan,” he begins, which is just _such_ a great sign. “It’s a fine country. But your facilities leave much to be desired, and I think you are fully aware that a champion will not come out of the Hasetsu Ice Castle.”

 _Um, I’m sitting right here,_ Yuuri wants to say, but instead he nods and spears a grape with his fork. He’s not technically a champion yet, not in the way that Yakov means, and there is a reason why Yuuri spent half a decade in Detroit. Ice Castle is charming and homey and comfortable, but it’s also tiny.

“I didn’t think we’d get this far,” Yakov says, which only stings a little bit. “But Rostelecom is now locked, and you only need to get fourth place or higher there in order to advance to the final. My skaters have always benefited from the best resources and facilities available, and it is only fair that you should get the same opportunities. So.” He pulls a piece of rectangular paper out of his wallet and puts it on the table, sliding it across to Yuuri. It’s a plane ticket.

“Oh, um, Yakov, I’m already checked in—”

“—It’s not to Japan,” Yakov cuts in. “It’s to St. Petersburg.”

Yuuri’s fork clatters to his plate. “What?”

Yakov cocks an eyebrow. “What is going to happen after the Grand Prix finals, Katsuki? Yes, exactly, you have no idea. Well, _I_ don’t want to stay in Japan for the rest of my days, and if you wish to continue skating, then a compromise must be made.”

Truth be told, Yuuri hasn’t even thought about his life after the Grand Prix final. It’s an event horizon in his mind, a point where information stops dead and speculation is essentially useless. And now he's falling into it headfirst.

“I…”

“I would like you to train in St. Petersburg,” Yakov says, sounding a little closer to his usual self. “For the next two weeks, until Rostelecom, and again until the Grand Prix final if you qualify. If it works out, it could become permanent. I make no promises; if you are not up to my standards, then I won’t coach you.”

Yuuri sits back, looking at the plane ticket. It’s for eight hours from now.

“Um—”

“—I’ve called your mother,” Yakov says, a phrase which Yuuri can safely say he never in his entire life expected to hear, but the past 24 hours have been an exercise in impossible things becoming reality. “She will pack and send my things. I recommend you call her to do the same. I will cover shipping charges.”

Yuuri blinks. “Okay.”

“Is that a yes, then?”

The math equation in his head suddenly gets a lot easier. How many days until he can see Victor again? How many hours? How many minutes?

 _I’ll be counting._ Victor has no idea how true that sentence actually is.

 _This could become permanent._ Yuuri’s life would change. He’s followed skating since he was a child; even before he had any grasp of the intersection between foreign politics and competitive sports, he would have understood exactly how rare this opportunity is.

 _I want to go back to Hasetsu and skate with you._ An agony of days, hours, minutes, seconds. He could see Victor again _today._

Yakov snaps his fingers in front of Yuuri’s nose, snapping him out of his reverie. “Well?”

Yuuri swallows a lump in his throat as another memory floats to the surface: _You’ll just have to surprise me._

“Yes.”

 

Late that night, Yuuri and Yakov land in St. Petersburg after a grueling eleven-hour flight and an hour and a half at customs; by the time they gather their baggage Yuuri feels like he’s made of dust, liable to disintegrate into nothing at the slightest breeze. They get in a black cab and drive through the city, choked with more snow than Yuuri’s seen in a very long time. He’s initially worried that the car will get stuck, but it glides through the flurries, scored by the muted _crunch_ of snow under tires. When the St. Petersburg rink appears in his view, Yuuri swallows a huge lump in his throat and feels his mouth go bone dry.

_I can’t believe I’m actually here._

The cab drives past the rink’s huge windows, and Yuuri swears he can see the faintest hint of movement inside but can’t be sure, and before he can get a better look the driver turns a corner. They continue for another three minutes before stopping in front of a nondescript concrete building; it’s the dormitory reserved for Team Russia, and now for Yuuri as well.

The lump returns and Yuuri briefly wonders if he’s getting sick, absently rubbing his lymph nodes as Yakov arranges for the driver to stay put and wait for him. They grab Yuuri’s suitcases and trundle inside, past a bored-looking woman with a side shave sitting in the lounge on a laptop. Yuuri’s paid a not-insignificant amount of attention to Team Russia over the years, but he’s never seen her before.

“Ice dancer,” Yakov grunts by way of explanation when he sees Yuuri stop. “Hello, Tzviya.”

She looks up and grins wickedly. “Yakov! Didn’t realize you were coming back so soon. Bringing in strays?”

“This is Yuuri Katsuki. He’s staying in Dmitri’s old room. Keys?”

“The Punk will be so _thrilled_ ” Tzviya cackles, rising from the couch like a cat. She pads out of the room and returns a few seconds later, tossing a set of keys which Yakov catches with easy grace, and then returns to her laptop.

Yakov leads Yuuri up three flights of stairs, a slow process considering Yuuri has to drag his bags alone.

“Kitchen is communal,” Yakov explains as they climb. “Your parents are sending you a stipend, yes?”

“Y-yes. Is the food shared, or—”

“—I have no idea,” Yakov cuts in, rolling his eyes. “I don’t live here. Work it out with the others, just keep to your diet and otherwise I couldn’t care less. Bathroom is at the end of the hall. We send for laundry service every week for the sheets, otherwise you’re responsible for your clothes; there are machines on the main floor. No drinking, no drugs, no intruding on the girls’ floors, and no… _fraternizing._ ” Yuuri, half a step behind, freezes up at the sound of the venom in Yakov’s voice, and he has to force himself to keep moving.

“I understand.”

“Training begins at six at the rink, jet lag notwithstanding.”

“It only takes me a day or two to get through it,” Yuuri mumbles. They finally stop at the third floor and walk into a narrow, bare hallway; buzzing fluorescent lights cast a sickly green pallor onto the bare concrete walls. Yakov unlocks the door closest to them and swings it open, flicking on the light—also fluorescent—and standing out of the way so that Yuuri can drag his suitcases inside and see his temporary home.

Yuuri has lived in some shitty dorm rooms in his time, and this is definitely one of them. The space consists of a single bed, a closet, a desk, and a window that is, he’s sure, the minimum size to adhere to fire safety regulations and not a millimetre larger. A roll of skate tape sits abandoned on the bedside table, next to a faded circular coffee stain.

“Georgi is next to you, and Yuri Plisetsky is down the hall,” Yakov says. “I trust you can keep things professional.”

Yuuri nods numbly.

“Good. See you tomorrow.”

The door closes, leaving him alone, and Yuuri takes a few deep breaths.

_Okay. I’m here now._

He screws his face up at the buzzing light above his head, and kneels down to unzip his suitcase, digging around until he produces his tiny clip-on travel light, which he adheres to the bedside table. When he turns it on it shines a pathetic spotlight on the coffee stain, and Yuuri makes a note to ask his mother to include some of his desk lamps when she sends his things. He curls up on the bed, relieved to find it somewhat comfortable, and heaves a sigh.

_What the entire fuck am I doing?_

Fourteen days—no. One day.

Yuuri feels his heart leap, almost striking against his ribs.

_Right. That’s what I’m doing. Hello, my name is Yuuri, and I just moved to Russia because of a boy. And also my career. But mostly a boy._

If Yuuri could go back in time to tell his 13-year-old self about this turn of events he’d probably make himself catatonic from how much it all just plain doesn’t make sense.

His stomach grumbles loudly, and Yuuri sets his mouth into a thin line. He has absolutely no clue about where to go to get food, though maybe the ice dancer downstairs would be able to help. She seemed nice, if a little snarky, and truth be told Yuuri’s dying to know how the heck she gets away with such a non-traditional hairstyle.

Yuuri pulls his phone out of his pocket and opens Instagram out of habit.

 

@v-nikiforov: [_Lyric Post - Spark, by Amber Run_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM_CYuEKMnI)     **2m ago  
** “First it's the spark and then it's the flame  
Then it's swinging round round lamp posts in the rain  
Well then it's that feeling that you, you just can't shake  
That your life's about to start and you just can't wait  
  
First it's the spark and then it's the flame  
Then it's getting blind drunk in the middle of the day  
And though it's a comma in a full stop's place  
It's that wherever I go I see your face”

 

Yuuri’s heart does an elaborate series of flip-flops as he taps the link to listen to the song. Firstly because it’s the cutest thing he’s read since Victor’s last lyric post, secondly because the time stamp implies that Victor has probably landed in Russia by now.

Then the flips become severe flops as Yuuri realizes that in the hurry to make arrangements, he never got the chance to tell Victor what’s going on.

_Shit._

Yuuri goes to Victor’s profile and hits _Direct Message._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Hey, um, so, funny story, I’m in St. Petersburg._

@v-nikiforov: _haha, Yuuri, don’t be mean_

@katsukiyuuri: _I’m serious_

@v-nikiforov: _I miss you too <3 <3 <3 _

 

Yuuri groans in frustration. Then he hears a muffled _thump_ outside his door, and a deep voice calls out something in Russian. He crosses the room and yanks open the door to see Georgi, looking exhausted, with a gym bag slung over his shoulder. His eyes narrow.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

Yuuri blinks. “I, uh, I’m going to be training here? For the next two weeks?”

Georgi’s right eyebrow climbs halfway up his forehead, but after a second his expression collapses and he gives the facial equivalent of a shrug. “I—fuck it. Whatever. I don’t care. Is Yakov also back, then?”

Yuuri nods.

“Oh, fantastic. Just in time.” His tone drips with sarcasm and anger, but before Yuuri can put an apology together Georgi turns to unlock his room and slams the door shut behind him. Yuuri flinches from the noise, the overhead lights buzzing interminably, and it takes him several seconds before he realizes that he’s not alone, and he registers the other person in the hallway.

_Fuck._

Yuri Plisetsky is standing against the doorjamb of his own room, arms folded, eyes staring out from beneath his blue hooded jacket. Yuuri’s blood goes cold, and he tries to find any of the things he’s wanted to say to Yurio over the months—screaming anger, pathetic sobbing, mature congratulations, whiny imitation, _anything at all_ —but he’s frozen in place, and he mentally braces for the first blow of the Russian Punk’s spitfire temper.

It never comes.

Yurio doesn’t yell. He doesn’t pout, and he doesn’t snarl. He makes direct eye contact with Yuuri, and his eyes betray the cold, cynical resignation. With a tiny shake of his head, as if to say _of course it’s you,_ Yurio turns around and disappears into his room. He doesn’t even slam the door.

Yuuri forces his limbs to move again, grabbing his headphones and keys and locking his room behind him. As he descends the stairs, he opens Instagram again; he intends to send Victor a more detailed message, but instead he sees something that makes him stop cold, mid-step:

 

@yuriplisetsky: _Lyric Post -[Blue Skies, by Kathryn Calder](https://fileundermusic.bandcamp.com/track/blue-skies)     _**Just Now  
** “My certainty bittersweetly left  
Disbelief armed but undressed  
As life fills with ghosts, it always comes too close  
What is left but our choice?  
  
I won’t ask for symmetry  
I won’t turn my face away  
From the grime or blue skies of another charming day  
Now I’ve been out digging bones  
And gone far too long  
‘Cause it’s just another way to drag my heart around.”

 

Yuuri taps the song link and sits down on the stairs, listening to the achingly beautiful sadness of the tune. In all the months that he’s been paying a ridiculous amount of attention to the contents of his Instagram feed, he’s never once seen Yuri Plisetsky make a lyric post.

Yuuri absently reloads the Instagram feed, and the song stops dead in his ears. Confused, he looks down:

 

@yuriplisetsky: **30s ago**

_-Post Deleted-_

 

Yuuri stands up, turns around, and tiptoes back to his room. He isn’t hungry anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I am on [Tumblr (with a brand new spiffy URL!)](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com)  
> \- I'm now also on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri)  
> \- [Saniika](http://saniika.tumblr.com/) keeps making art, and oh dear god they're all so wonderful my heart aches:[Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) and [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the)  
> 
> 
> * AND BECAUSE WE ARE BLESSED, there is already art for [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me), which was done today from the excerpt I posted earlier. 
> 
>  
> 
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right)  
> (if you want to do art of this story or something, btw, go for it! I'm so fucking jazzed people read this and like it enough to do this kinda stuff, it blows my mind)  
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://youtu.be/k7in-9E3ImQ?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)


	14. A Constant Condition of Falling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or: how to destroy Victor Nikiforov in just over seven thousand words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew. God. Okay. This chapter. 
> 
> This has been one of the harder chapters for me to write in this fic, in part because I had a little bit of a panic moment about whether all my plans would work out and how to pace them, and then compounded by a super stressful presentation I had to create last-minute _and_ one of the worst colds I've had in years, and which I'm still suffering from. But today I sat down and just...I started writing, and I didn't stop, and then it was done. And it's devastating. And I'm sorry; I promise things will not stay as rough for any longer than this chapter. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive as I've muddled my way through the past few weeks. I've still got some stressful stuff on the horizon but I'm really happy I was able to do this, and I hope you enjoy this chapter. 
> 
> Follow along with the whole soundtrack:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

_Go to sleep._

Yuuri blinks into the unfamiliar dark, his fingers itching with the urge to tap the Home button on his phone and unlock the distracting, colourful universe inside, but backlights mess with your brain’s melatonin levels.

_Go to sleep._

Fuck it. He turns over and grabs his phone from the nightstand; it’s exactly midnight. His body, still primed for life in Hasetsu, is alert and ready to start skating. So many parts of Yuuri still haven’t grasped what it is that he’s done.

_Go to sleep._

He sighs heavily, closes his eyes again, and rolls a shoulder that’s starting to get stiff.

_Go to sleep._

If he does, what happens next?

Yuuri pulls his earbuds into his ears and opens his phone, wincing at the sudden brightness. Still half-asleep, he hits the Play button on his earphones and smiles at the randomized song that starts to play. _This is nice,_ he muses, and he posts the lyric to Instagram without really even thinking about it. So much of his life is drenched in _thought_ , in heavy analysis and re-analysis and over-analysis; and yet in this ridiculous moment, hung outside of space and time, all Yuuri thinks is that _Victor would probably like this._ Nothing more, nothing less.

_Go to sleep._

Yawning, Yuuri now navigates to a specific song _._ Then he lies back, eyes fluttering closed.

“ _Sento una voce che piange lontano / Anche tu, sei stato forse abbandonato?”_

The music carries Yuuri away on a lush and gentle wave. He takes deep breaths, each one cleansing and calm.

 _This story that has no meaning / Will vanish tonight together with the stars._ He doesn’t remember exactly when he memorized the translation but he knows it like a prayer.

_Go to sleep._

The aria reaches its climax and Yuuri turns the volume down by two clicks as the song starts all over again.

“ _Ho paura di perderti…”_

He imagines his lips opening to mouth along to words he does not know but which he understands all too well.

_Go to sleep._

At some point he does.

 

_Go to sleep._

Victor rolls over violently, flinging his arm out across his bed and accidentally smacking Makkachin, earning a disgruntled _boof_. “Sorry,” he mumbles, turning back and trying to untwist himself from bedsheets he could have sworn weren’t nearly this suffocating when he left them.

With a sigh, Victor sits up in bed. Makkachin raises his head, sees no indication that treats will be forthcoming, and then flops back down onto the covers with an audible huff.

 _Go to sleep_.

It’s past midnight; he and Georgi flew in just a few hours ago, but Victor’s heart and half his brain are still in a hotel room in Beijing, committing every detail of Yuuri Katsuki’s sleeping face to memory. Victor could have stayed in Yuuri’s room all night, but as the endorphins wore off and the minutes passed by, the reality of what he had just done began to grow larger inside his head. A deep well of guilt, filled with the twin horrors of regret and regret over _feeling_ regret.

A promise is a promise, and Victor had just broken it. Twice.

He had lain there for what seemed like forever, alternating between being entranced by Yuuri’s fluttering eyelids and being consumed by the black fire of _I’ve fucked up,_ until he’d run away like a goddamn coward. At least he remembered to leave a note with a reasonable explanation.

As he walked back to his own room, Victor had composed, and then deleted, a lyric post:

  
@v-nikiforov: [_Lyric Post - Pitter-Pat, by Erin McCarley_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tWpqDiiSbY)     **Just Now  
** “I've lost my sense of right and wrong  
Well-justified my soul to carry on  
It feels so damn good to write off the rules  
But when a new day breaks  
I'm left a fool  
I'm such a fool  
  
Pain takes my heart's place  
Your sweet sweet love,  
Oh, I can taste it  
But still can't face it…  
  
Pitter pat, the angel on my shoulder  
Is haunting me tonight  
Tick tock the clock is getting louder  
Waiting for me to decide…”

 

 _Go to sleep_.

Victor wonders if he even can. Maybe he’ll never sleep again. He doesn’t feel normal; granted, nothing about this year has been normal, but there was a sense of routine in his coaching duties, and right now the Red Army could march through the streets and raise the sickle and hammer on the rooftop of every building in the city and Victor wouldn’t really be surprised.

 _Go to sleep_.

He has so much to do tomorrow. It’s a brand new day, and Victor now has a brand new plan.

One month. That’s all he has left. What had once seemed like an eternity of hours and minutes and seconds now seems like a breeze, even if he’s completely disjointed right now. Victor will see Yuuri again in two weeks, and then two weeks after that he’ll be able to quit as Yurio’s coach.

He’ll be _free_ , he thinks, before quickly shaking his head. _No. That’s not the right way to think about it._

He can’t help it.

Victor takes a deep breath and stretches his neck.

Here’s the plan.

Victor will pour everything he has into this last month. He’ll make Yuri Plisetsky into a fucking star, set up Team Russia to shine for the next few years, and then he will run back to Japan, pick up where he and Yuuri had left off, and live happily ever after. He started comparison shopping for flights while he and Georgi waited in the airport.

As if on cue, his phone lights up with a notification: _@katsukiyuuri has a new post on Instagram_.

Victor grins. It’s six in the morning in Hasetsu, though if Yuuri’s direct message from an hour ago is anything to go by, he probably wishes he was here in Russia—and so does Victor. At some point he should probably lovingly admonish Yuuri for playing such a clumsy prank on him. One day, in person, when Victor can nail all the teasing elements in his voice and make it clear that he’s only joking, because he knows that Yuuri can be anxious about things.

For now, a new lyric post will suffice.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Soon, My Friend, by M83](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8kYNcDVWr8)_      **Just Now  
** “I’ll be yours someday”

 

Victor puts on his junk earbuds he uses to get to sleep sometimes—he’s not going to risk his good ones getting twisted up, that’s how they break—and hits Play.

Even with the cheap headphones, the song immediately lulls him, starting out with a gentle acoustic guitar line that sounds like it’s suspended in space surrounded by diamond-like stars. There’s only one line; it’s the one Yuuri sent. Over and over. _I’ll be yours someday_.

_Go to sleep._

The strings are mostly lost on the headphones; the entire treble end of the orchestration mushes together into one wave of ethereal noise, but it’s almost better this way. Victor lies back down, headphones still in his ears, and he puts the song on repeat.

_Go to sleep._

His hand drifts over to Makkachin’s head, moving as if through molasses. Victor is being carried away into the stars, soaring with the grand sweetness of Yuuri’s promise: _I’ll be yours someday. I’ll be yours someday. I’ll be yours someday._

_Go to sleep._

At some point he does.

 

_The Cup of China banquet is—_

Yuuri snaps awake to the sound of thudding bass from the far wall. Georgi is playing music so loudly that Yuuri can hear the words as clearly as if they were coming from his own music player:

[ “ _Wake me up (wake me up inside)—”_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YxaaGgTQYM)

His jaw drops open. “Is he _kidding?_ ”

Evanescence is not the greatest way to wake up, but after the shock of hearing the song wears off, Yuuri sits up in bed, takes a look around, and is slammed with a much bigger wave of shock, because _what the fuck have I done?_

Invisible hands wrap around his lungs and squeeze.

When he decided to move to Detroit, Yuuri took a trip to see the Wayne State campus, including touring his living quarters. It was a luxury he could only afford thanks to lightning-quick activity on some seat sales, but having photos of his new space and an understanding of the campus layout made him infinitely less anxious (though still very anxious) when he actually did make the move a few months later. He had time to plan, to organize, to outline, to understand and come to terms with his decision. He had time for a few thousand micro panic attacks, little moments throughout his day where he’d run the full gamut of _what the fuck am I about to do_ through _this is a bad idea_ and _I have made a huge mistake_ and eventually to _it will be okay_ , all in the span of about a minute. When he did move, he was able to unpack his new dorm room in about two days, with a place for everything and everything in its place.

By contrast, Yuuri flew to St. Petersburg after about three minutes’ consideration. And now he’s here, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the gear he had with him for the Cup of China; his silver medal is still tucked into the inner pocket of his backpack. He won’t have a second set of workout clothes or his backup glasses for another two days, when his things arrive from home.

Yuuri leans over to put his head between his knees.

He’s done some pretty stupid things in his life. When he was eight he tried to climb a tree after much goading by Mari, only to fall and be rewarded with a sprained wrist. When he was fourteen he tried to do two triple flips in a row and very narrowly avoided breaking his femur. When he was eighteen he tried mixing his own bourbon and coke at a party, only to wake up still drunk the next day. When he was twenty he kinda sorta ended up in a very low-key threesome situation at a raucously wild party.

Moving to St. Petersburg is orders of magnitude stupider than all of those things combined. Or at least it feels that way.

Yuuri’s phone beeps, reminding him to get up, and with a sigh he pushes himself to his feet and creeps over to the closet on the opposite wall. As he goes to grab a towel Yuuri can hear movement outside in the hall, and someone knocks at a door—not his.

“Hey, asshole!” Yurio yells. “No one wants to hear that stupid bullshit!”

In response, the thudding music gets even louder, and Yuuri can almost see the wall in front of him tremble with every word: _“(Wake me up) Bid my blood to run / (I can't wake up) Before I come undone / (Save me) Save me from the nothing I've become…”_

Yuuri shakes his head as he rummages in his suitcase for his toiletry kit. Of all improbable things, he certainly never expected _anyone_ to still be listening to Evanescence, much less all the way out here in Russia. But then, maybe Victor’s credo about the importance of surprises is more of a party line than an individual catchphrase.

Yuuri manages to sneak into the bathroom without being seen; he takes his clothes with him and showers as quickly as he can, drying off in the stall and getting dressed before venturing out into the main area.

 _I’m not_ trying _to avoid Yurio_ , he lies, but he also knows there’s no way to prevent it, and sure enough Yurio is standing at one of the sinks, clad in black pyjamas that are _covered_ in cat hair. Yurio manages an impressive silent snarl in Yuuri’s direction, even with a toothbrush in his mouth.

Yuuri takes a breath. “Well,” he says. “This is awkward.”

Yurio spits and rinses off his brush. “Don’t see why,” he replies flatly. “See you at the rink.” He whirls around, shaking the long bangs out of his face, and stalks out of the bathroom.

_Well, fuck._

 

Yuuri completely blacks out the walk from the dormitory to the arena; he loses himself in the back-and-forth swish of Yurio’s hair in front of him as he numbly puts one foot in front of the other. He comes back to reality to find himself standing in front of a pair of double doors; he’s got skates on his feet now, even though he has no memory whatsoever of putting them on, and his vision is blurry—his glasses are gone. Hopefully in a locker or a bag, but Yuuri has no idea which one. That will be a fun task for this afternoon.

“Katsuki, stop daydreaming,” comes a gruff voice, and Yuuri turns to see Yakov standing beside him. _How long has he been there?_

Yuuri shakes his head to clear the last bit of shock-induced dissociation. “Sorry, Coach,” he says.

“Well, let’s get out there, then.” Yakov pushes open the doors to the rink. A blast of cool air hits Yuuri’s face; the cool metallic slide of skates on ice, a sound so familiar it may as well be his own heartbeat, sounds suddenly foreign, and he steps forward on heavy feet.

The St. Petersburg rink is absolutely _huge_. A bank of floor-to-ceiling windows dominates one side of the room, flooding the rink with cold winter light; the upper part of the opposite wall is filled with tinted windows meant for spectators, and between them is draped a massive flag bearing the Russian coat of arms. There are already a couple of people on the ice, including Mila and Yurio; and there, leaning both forearms on the rink barrier—Victor, who looks over at the sound of footsteps.

Brown eyes meet blue, and the world stays exactly where it is. At least for Yuuri. Victor goes deathly pale, jaw dropping.

“What—what are you doing here?” he chokes out.

Yakov cracks up in a manner which Yuuri now knows is meant to be intimidating.

“This is a world-class skating club, Vitya,” he replies coolly. “You can’t expect to be king of this castle forever. You knew I’d be back.”

“Yeah, but—”

“—That time is now,” Yakov interrupts, and Victor’s mouth shuts into a tight line so quickly that Yuuri nearly bursts out laughing from shock. He’s never seen Victor like this before.

Yakov looks pointedly at Yuuri and then jerks his head in the direction of the ice, a signal easily understood, so Yuuri takes off his skate guards and walks to the rink entrance, right next to where Victor is standing. As he steps out onto the ice, Yuuri risks the tiniest glance in Victor’s direction, a private smile playing across his lips; but when he makes eye contact, he sees nothing but a blank stare.

He waits until he’s at the very far end of the rink before he lets his own expression fall.

Yuuri does a few warmup drills on his own before circling back to where Yakov now stands, and he waits for some instruction to be called his way—but nothing ever comes, because Yakov isn’t looking at Yuuri at all.

Yuuri loops around, skids to a stop midway down the ice, and watches as Yakov barges over, _in front of Victor_ , to yell for Yurio to watch his trailing leg. Victor takes a single step back, out of Yakov’s way, and when Yakov leaves he shrugs towards Yurio and nods in agreement.

_What the entire goddamn fuck._

Yuuri is so taken aback that he doesn’t hear the first thing Yakov yells, and has to skate over to hear it again, much to his coach’s annoyance.

“I _said_ that you should do a full run through of the free skate with marked jumps.”

“Sorry,” Yuuri mumbles, and then, before he can stop himself: “What was, uh, that all about?”

Yakov’s snarl is scarier than Yuuri’s seen in months. “None of your business,” he barks in reply. “Now go do what I’ve instructed.”

Yuuri skates to an empty spot in the rink; when he strikes his starting pose and looks back over, Yakov is looking at Yurio again.

Yuuri skates the routine so badly that he actually ends up profoundly grateful that no one was paying attention to him.

 

**(A few hours later)**

Yuuri opens Instagram with the tiniest modicum of a pout. It’s his lunch break, after a long and confusing morning of training. He’d anticipated that he’d have to work hard on staying focused on Yakov’s instructions, but had in fact encountered the opposite; he competed for Yakov’s attention every single time he finished a drill.

And now it’s lunchtime. Yuuri knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything like a lunch _date_ with Victor, but he’d hoped to at least exchange a few words with the guy—but he’s gone, apparently eating somewhere else, and no one at the rink seems to particularly care. Yakov has also disappeared, although at this point Yuuri just takes that as a given. They’ve both been gone for about twenty minutes, maybe having lunch together and catching up. Yuuri goes to his direct message thread with Victor.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _I tried to tell you. ;-)_  
@katsukiyuuri: _Listen, I’m sorry. I know it’s a shock. I don’t really know why I did it. I just…it was a good opportunity. And I wanted to see you. It was dumb.  
_ @katsukiyuuri: _Victor?_

 

Nothing. Yuuri flips back to the main feed. Might as well post something.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Astronaut, by San Fermin](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-A7LlsK-Ng)    _ **Just Now  
** “Mornings with you in a constant condition of falling  
And all of the armour that we carried over gets carried away  
  
But I am an astronaut trying to find my home from outer space…”

 

He certainly feels lost.

Yuuri finishes his sandwich before he refreshes the feed; he blinks in surprise at the newest post at the top.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -_[Astronaut, by The Tourist Company](https://thetouristcompany.bandcamp.com/track/astronaut)    **1m ago  
** “Now I cannot say a word  
My throat closed  
Can you see my surprise?  
Can you feel my heart race?  
Can I ever explain? No I can’t  
  
We were the chosen few  
Set apart, set apart  
Chosen to chase the stars  
While they invent the astronaut  
Consumed by a blinding light  
All alone, all for naught  
So tumbling towards new lows  
I lost your love, I lost your heart.”

 

Yuuri listens to the song; it’s a dreamy space-rock indie tune, imbued with undeniable sadness. Victor still hasn’t replied to the instant message.

He rereads the post and can’t stop the bloom of anxiety that starts expanding inside his heart.

_What just happened to Victor?_

 

Victor Nikiforov is not accustomed to failure. He hasn't failed at anything significant—at least by his standards—for many, many years.

He knows he's been failing to live up to what Yurio needs, but being with Yuuri was a shot of adrenaline right to his heart. Victor woke up feeling more alert and happy than he has in months; he actually hummed a little tune as he fed Makkachin, and the poodle picked up on his energy and responded with a full-body wriggle of joy and a few excited barks.

As Victor prepared for the day, he couldn’t help but stand straighter, hold his head higher, smile a little more readily. In his mind he was preparing an apology to Yuri, and creating a mental list of all the ways they can get on the same page in time for Rostelecom. Yuri is in a very good place; as Victor suspected, the Russian Punk's natural raw talent and drive has more than sustained him so far this season. His technical elements are pretty good, although occasionally he slips up, like all teenagers do. For the past few weeks Lilia has been at the rink more and more, which has definitely helped Yuri’s confidence; she's always been supportive of Team Russia, and Victor is still new to coaching, so her input has been quite valuable.

And then the last two people he ever expected to see strolled into the rink.

Victor has always known he’s an emotional person, but the sight of Yakov and Yuuri had straight up broken every logical element in his brain. Every atom in his body had surged with joy at the sight of Yuuri, but had been equally terrified into stillness by the sight of Yakov.

A promise is a promise. Victor had not only broken that promise, but the other guilty party was now _walking right up to him._

Victor was gripped with a fear. Did Yakov know? No, he couldn’t; if he had, Yuuri wouldn’t be here.

Or maybe he would.

Now, out for his lunch break and relishing the crisp winter air, Victor walks over the bridge where he said goodbye to Yakov just before he went to Hasetsu. With a tired sigh he leans against the railing, looking out over the wintery landscape. He spent most of the morning trying to stop himself from tensing up over Yakov’s presence, and was barely able to focus on—well, on anything. He saw Yakov jump in to correct Yurio on a trailing leg, and had been too flustered to say anything, because he was waiting every moment for Yakov to turn to face him and mutter “I know what you did” under his breath. But the morning passed without any major revelations, and now Victor starts to wonder if maybe it’s just really as simple as Yuuri getting the chance to train in St. Petersburg.

Yuuri. In St. Petersburg. _Yuuri is here._ Victor almost starts to smile.

“Vitya.” A voice from behind him.

Victor closes his eyes, then opens them. He does not turn around. “Hello, Yakov.” In his peripheral vision he sees his old coach come to stand beside him, and for a while they stare out over the bridge in silence.

Yakov is the seven-billion-time world champion of silent treatment contests, so Victor eventually sets his mouth in a thin line and concedes defeat. “Welcome back.”

Yakov barks out a humourless laugh. “Thanks.”

Victor breathes, in and out, and slips behind his public mask; his face rearranges itself into the charming-but-amiable version of himself that is his default around coaches, sponsors, and most of Team Russia. “I take it you had a good flight? I—”

“—Don’t,” Yakov cuts in, and Victor feels his heart lurch. “Let’s not play coy about this.”

Victor absently traces a spot of rust with his fingertip. “Okay,” he says steadily. “So. You’re here now. Yuuri’s here now.”

Yakov nods stiffly. “Yes.”

“Is he staying?”

“That is entirely up to him.”

Victor blinks, and he sees a flash of Yuuri performing Eros behind his eyes. He swallows the lump in his throat, unable to resist the words that want to crawl out of him: “I was right, wasn’t I?” The mental image of Yuuri persists and Victor’s voice gets thicker. “About Yuuri. He was worth it.”

Yakov says nothing.

Heart fluttering like a hummingbird, Victor yanks the corners of his mouth up into a professional, close-lipped smile, but it only lasts for about five seconds before it falls apart. “Listen, I know how much of an opportunity this is for Yuuri. I know you assume I won’t be able to hold up my end of the bargain but I can. I will.”

Now Yakov’s mouth twists into the most horrifyingly cynical half-smile Victor has ever seen. “Victor,” he says flatly. “Don’t be naive.”

“I’m…not?”

Yakov’s shoulders heave with an exasperated sigh. “Fine, then I’ll be blunt: you have failed Yuri Plisetsky as a coach and put his career in jeopardy.”

The world cracks apart.

“I am unofficially here to oversee your last month as a coach, and mitigate what damage I can.” Yakov sounds impossibly calm.

Victor stares directly ahead at the river below. He does not visibly move but he distantly feels himself grip the railing until his fingers hurt. He forces his mouth open and moves it so that it produces a series of sounds.

“Yakov, I—”

In his peripheral vision, Victor sees Yakov put up his hand, and the motion is so ingrained that it silences him immediately.

“Lilia got in touch,” he says cooly, “to tell me that Yuri had come to see her. To ask for her help. Because his coach wasn’t paying attention or providing him with the direction he needed.”

Victor feels far, far away. “I didn’t mean to…I’ve had some…” But there are no words.

“I take no pleasure in this,” Yakov says, and Victor believes him. “You were the best skater I’ve ever coached, one of the best in the world. It’s a fucking shame that this is how it ends.”

“Wait,” Victor hears himself say. “Ends? Yakov, I’m not retired.”

Yakov looks genuinely remorseful. “Vitya, you’re going to be twenty-eight this year,” he says with a spectre of gentleness. “You know the statistics. Your chances of continuing your winning streak are dropping with every passing day, and the likelihood of a major injury is rising. You have pushed yourself harder than any skater I’ve ever met for over twenty years; it’s going to start taking a toll, and the consequences are inevitable. If you were still competitive this year, it might have already happened; it’s entirely possible you’ve avoided a broken bone simply by virtue of the fact that you haven’t been skating as much. If you tried to return now, do you really think it would work? No. Your competitive career is over. I’m sorry but that’s the way it is.”

Victor feels a tear roll down his cheek, and he watches it splash onto his glove. He starts to feel light-headed; he can’t breathe too deeply because he doesn’t know at what point he’ll be unable to stop himself from turning an exhale into a sob. When he starts to worry he’ll actually pass out he allows himself one sniff, air rushing into aching lungs, and he turns his head a fraction of an inch away from Yakov and lets his hair conceal the fact that he’s brushing the tears away.

Yakov doesn’t notice. Or, if he does, he is merciful and pretends not to.

“Yuuri Katsuki is an immensely talented skater. I hesitate to use the phrase _the next Victor Nikiforov_ , but I understand why you saw that in him. I am offering him a chance to take advantage of the best resources available, and we shall see if he rises to meet your mantle.”

“Who’s going to coach him?” Victor whispers, although it comes out more as a flat, unaffected statement.

“I am. And you will continue to fulfill the terms of your contract with Yuratchka, but make no mistake; you’re no longer in charge of him.”

Victor looks down at the half-frozen river and for a fraction of a second he is consumed with the darkest thoughts imaginable. He curls his toes inside his shoes, planting himself firmly to the ground beneath his feet.

“I know you didn’t do any of this out of malice. We all make mistakes, and the important thing is to learn from them. And, for the record, I _don’t_ assume that you won’t be able to fulfill the terms of our original agreement when it comes to Yuuri,” Yakov says. “Because for all that you’re flighty and distracted and unfocused, I know that you are still kind, and you will try to avoid causing any more damage than you already have.”

Victor remains frozen in place, staring straight ahead at an increasingly meaningless seascape, and out of the corner of one eye he watches the blurry outline of Yakov walk away. As soon as he’s alone, Victor lets his knees sag, and he claps one hand over his mouth to muffle the gasping sob that escapes his lungs. And then something breaks inside his brain, and every emotion falls into a dark black void and instantly disappears.

He straightens. He doesn’t feel lightheaded anymore as much as he simply doesn’t feel _there._ Victor blinks, now surprised at the remaining tears on his eyelashes. He’s just plain _gone_.

He watches, as if from half a step back, as he pulls out his phone and opens Instagram automatically. He sees a notification of a direct message from Yuuri, and he opens it to read the words, but they don’t evoke anything. Victor understands the English; there’s no response to give.

Over on the main feed, Yuuri has posted a lyric about astronauts. Victor mindlessly pulls up a new lyric post of his own and sends a snippet of a different song of the same name. Somewhere, far away in his heart, he recognizes that he’s responded in some kind of meaningful way.

He turns away from the railing and begins the walk back to the arena; it’s time for the afternoon training to begin. Every step echoes for thousands of imaginary miles, and even though the bridge is full of people Victor never feels anything but completely and totally alone.

 

Yuuri wakes up at exactly midnight. Again.

The darkness of his dorm room no longer seems quite so foreign; familiarity is beginning to creep in around the edges of the space like mould. He’s no longer paralyzed by the overwhelming reality of where he is; it’s just a fact, a place like any other, a city in a country on a planet.

It doesn’t mean Yuuri can get back to sleep, though.

While normally he’d at least try, the events of the day start replaying in his head, and it quickly becomes clear that he’ll never calm his brain down if he doesn’t expend at least some of the nervous energy that’s now humming through him. Yuuri has spent no small amount of time dreaming about skating on the same ice as Victor Nikiforov; he devoted most of the plane ride to Russia to a high-octane fantasy about what it was going to be like to train at the St. Petersburg arena. In all the hundreds of potential scenarios, he never thought it would go down the way it did today. Victor just wasn’t…there. He was overshadowed by Yakov in the morning; in the afternoon he barely said a single word. Truth be told, it’s shaken Yuuri to his core.

As he pulls on a warm pair of pants and searches for his socks in the dark, Yuuri compiles all of the variables at hand. There is the lust and desire he saw in Victor’s eyes as he nearly tore Yuuri’s shirt from his chest in China; there is the genuine reassurance that the hookup was not a one-time thing, an assurance which Yuuri still wants to believe is true. There is the fact that Victor apparently promised Yakov that he’d stay away from Yuuri; there is his invitation to have an _affair_ , like they’re rich socialites or soap opera characters. And now there is this new Victor, who barely glanced in Yuuri’s direction all day, who reacted to Yuuri’s arrival with a totally unreadable expression and behaved as if he’d given up on his whole fucking _life._

As Yuuri slips out into the hallway and locks his door as quietly as he can, he concludes that it’s entirely possible that Victor Nikiforov might have a doppelgänger.

There’s no one in the downstairs lounge, allowing Yuuri to sneak out of the building like a burglar in reverse. It’s lightly snowing outside, and the cold bites at Yuuri’s exposed eyes and nose and travels into his nostrils and down into his lungs. The wind isn’t as fierce as it was in the morning, so Yuuri is able to keep his bearings as he picks his way through the snowbanks towards the rink. He isn’t sure if his key card will even allow him access this late at night, and he wouldn’t know what to do even if it did; the rink is much larger than Ice Castle, and there are probably alarm codes, but it’s the only place he knows in the city.

Yuuri was shown the athlete entrance earlier in the day, which most of the skaters use; it’s the door closest to them when walking over from the dormitory. But as he approaches the arena, Yuuri can’t help but turn down the side street and walk around to the front of the building, where the huge floor-to-ceiling windows gleam like emotionless open eyes. A car whizzes by, its headlights casting dramatic shadows which suggest all manner of terrible things lurking just out of Yuuri’s sight, before disappearing into the void of snow that is tinted gold by the street lamps overhead. Yuuri turns his focus back to those windows, which seemed so overwhelming when the taxi drove past them.

There’s definitely movement inside; the lights are low, just the emergency halogens kept on for security purposes, but Yuuri stares long enough that he’s sure his eyes are not playing tricks on him. Curious, he comes a little bit closer to the window, side-stepping a thorny and gnarled hedge that, he supposes, has been planted to specifically prevent the type of up-close snooping he’s doing.

Yuuri squints slightly, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the rink’s low light, and just as he can start to make out the flags on the wall a shadowy figure skates almost directly across his line of vision, making him jump. Someone is in there.

 _He’s_ in there.

Now Yuuri backtracks, his heart pounding like he’s in a horror movie, but when he listens for any murderers hiding in the bushes he instead hears a faint trill of a piano coming from inside the building. He turns the corner to the athlete entrance, an unmarked solid metal door hidden in an alcove, fishing in his pocket for his key ring, but as he approaches the door Yuuri notices that it’s being held ajar with a heavy rock. The music is now louder, though still not completely distinct. He slips inside as silently as he can, making sure the rock remains in place, and then creeps up the hall to the rink.

As Yuuri approaches the ice, he finally recognizes the music; it’s an instrumental piece called [“Divenire,”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8SkX9CSJQo) and it had been a favourite of one of his Detroit rink mates way back in her Junior days. It’s been years since Yuuri heard it, but he is stopped in his tracks by the wrenching emotion of it; the piano leaps and soars, lifted and tossed and caught by the swelling strings underneath. Yuuri’s arrived just as the song concludes; for a heartstopping second he worries that Victor will leave the rink and spot him, but the song just starts again after a few seconds.

Yuuri flattens himself against the back wall; he’s concealed by shadows, but he can clearly see Victor gliding gently across the ice. The cold blue-white spotlights, arranged for security rather than dramatic flair, bring out the blue undertones in Victor’s skin and make him look otherworldly—as if the Earth couldn’t quite put together something like him even if it tried. For the first minute and a half of the song, Victor seems to just skate through the space, doing a turn every once in a while; then, as the piano’s motif begins in earnest, he spreads his arms out far behind him, his torso dipping low, shoulderblades appearing as shadows across his back, and Yuuri starts. It’s the movement from the very beginning of Yurio’s Agape program, which has always reminded him of angels’ wings.

Victor doesn’t continue the Agape choreography, though; he sweeps around into a basic step sequence, through to a perfectly executed spread eagle to a triple axel.

Huh.

As the song builds in intensity, Victor’s movements get more and more grand, but disjointed; they don’t work as choreography, and it takes another minute or so before Yuuri realizes why: Victor’s not skating something he’s created for anyone else to see.

Divenire calms down a little, and now Yuuri recognizes some of the moves in the field from Stammi Vicino, stitched roughly together with bits of Victor’s free skate from two years ago. The song slows to an aching pace, and Victor covers his face with his hands for a moment, striking a figure that’s almost criminally beautiful; Yuuri can almost see the emotion radiating through him. As the piano and strings start to pick up speed again, Victor marks out a toe loop-salchow combination before taking off around the ice at a speedy pace, and the music builds and builds until it suddenly drops out—

Yuuri gulps hard as Victor does an effortless quad flip, landing with a _crack_ that pierces the sudden silence and echoes through the space.

He stops, and in the striking halogen lights Yuuri can see the blissfully happy expression on Victor’s face. And then the expression crumples, and for just a moment Victor looks like he might burst out crying.

Yuuri covers his mouth with his hands.

Now Victor leans over, hands on knees, panting just a little as Divenire begins again. He skates closer and hops up to sit on the rink barrier, a move that every skater knows is strictly forbidden even though it is often extremely tempting. Victor lies back so that he’s stretched out across the barrier, letting one leg dangle off the side, and he closes his eyes as the music begins to swell. Yuuri tells himself to run, to get out now while he won’t be seen, but as he begins to tiptoe away he can’t help but stare at Victor’s face for just a little while longer—just long enough to see Victor raise one hand to his cheek and wipe away a tear, as his shoulders start to shake with sobs.

Now it’s time to go.

Yuuri sneaks out of the rink silently, lighter on his feet than he’s ever been, and as soon as he’s outside he sags against the arena wall.

Victor isn't skating competitively, and it’s tearing him apart.

Yuuri shuffles back to the dorm numbly. When he gets to his bedroom, he locks his door and rests his forehead against the heavy wood.

_Fuck._

If this is how Victor feels then he will never want to be Yuuri’s coach, and Yuuri can’t ask him to be. Not when he misses skating this much.

As soon as Yuuri thinks that thought, he swiftly puts it in a box and pushes it away. He can’t even fathom it right now; if he does, everything will fall apart. He pulls out his phone and opens Instagram.

Victor still hasn’t replied to his direct message. Well, then, fuck it. Back to the old ways. When he flips back to the main timeline, Yuuri sees Victor's username right away:

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Here, by Kendra Morris](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hvh7jlH-A8)     _ **3m ago  
** “I couldn’t write you a symphony  
With all of these pieces and pieces and pictures of who you are.  
And I couldn’t write you a love poem  
With all these meanings and things, all these stories of who you are  
And I couldn’t be your coach  
In all these words that I wanted  
These words that I want you to say.”

 

He sits down hard.

_Well. There you have it._

The song is a bluesy throwback to old soul, drenched with wanting and heartbreak. As Yuuri listens, he curls up into the fetal position.

 _I miss you, Victor_ , he wants to say, as the singer croons “ _I want you right here, right here by my side…”_

He remembers a night not too long ago when he lay in a similar position, reaching out for help, and how he found it in Victor even though they hadn’t exchanged a single non-musical word.

Yuuri blinks. If Victor isn’t responding to direct messages, maybe he’ll respond to a lyric. There’s no harm in trying. He came to this frozen hellscape ostensibly to skate, but realistically it was for Victor, and something is very clearly wrong with him. Part of Yuuri doesn’t want to pry, but another part of him knows that there’s very little that will keep him motivated if Victor isn’t a part of his life here.

  
@katsukiyuuri:[ _Lyric Post - Deep End, by Birdy_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGYurRd-USw)    **Just Now  
** “You've gone quiet, you don't call  
And nothing's funny anymore  
And I'll keep trying to help you heal  
I'll stop your crying and dry your tears  
  
Ooh, I don't want this to break you  
Ooh, but I've got no one else to talk to  
  
I don't know if you mean everything to me  
And I wonder, can I give you what you need?  
Don't want to find I've lost it all  
Too scared to have no one to call  
So can we just pretend?”

 

Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Refr—aha.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Haunted, by Poe](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3lBF2h-Pl0) _    **Just Now  
** “And I'm haunted  
By the lives that I have loved  
And actions I have hated  
I'm haunted  
By the promises I've made  
And others I have broken  
I'm haunted  
By the lies that wove the web  
Inside my haunted head.”

 

Jesus. Yuuri feels his heart come very close to breaking, and he imagines what it must have been like for Victor to comfort him the night before the Championship. It’s time to repay that kindness.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Crash and Burn, by Savage Garden](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W60IPexop30)_      **Just Now  
** “If you need to fall apart  
I can mend a broken heart  
If you need to crash, then crash and burn;  
You're not alone…”

 

A notification pops up in front of a photo of Phichit’s hamsters: a new direct message. Heart pounding, Yuuri opens it.

 

@v-nikiforov: _im sorry_  
@katsukiyuuri: _Are you okay?  
_ @v-nikiforov: _no._

 

Yuuri swallows a lump in his throat.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _can I help?_

 

He falls asleep while waiting for an answer that never comes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, again, for all your support and kindness, readers. <3 It means the world to me. Please let me know what you think. I promise next chapter will not be nearly as shattering to my poor Extra skate son. 
> 
> And yes, the low-key threesome situation is a reference to rageprufrock's absolutely delightful [No Less Unthinkable](http://archiveofourown.org/works/9643403/chapters/21786299). I don't know why it happened but I'm glad it did. 
> 
> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com)  
> \- I'm now also on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri)  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) and [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me)  
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right)  
> (if you want to do art of this story or something, btw, go for it! I'm so fucking jazzed people read this and like it enough to do this kinda stuff, it blows my mind)  
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tWpqDiiSbY&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx&index=77)


	15. Back Lashing With a Bullet Full of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or: how to fix Victor Nikiforov in almost _exactly_ ten thousand words. Ten thousand smutty, smutty words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Past Me: *gets outrageously sick, writes a chapter full of angst that destroys Victor, Yuuri, and my readers, goes traveling for a week*  
> Present Me: Oh holy hell how do I get myself out of this?  
> Writing Imps: the healing power of a lengthy lyric conversation and some shifting-power-dynamics smut and make it THE LONGEST CHAPTER YOU’VE WRITTEN YET  
> Me: Oh okay cool—  
> Imps: —and then cut around three thousand words for pacing purposes.  
> Me: …wait what
> 
> Readers, this is hands down one of my favourite chapters so far. It was hugely tough to write, and I did cut around 3,000 words from it (including, I'm sad to say, the "Bad Touch" jokes, which will show up in future chapters), but the end result has been worth every second. I didn't intend to write submissive!Victor in this fic, but oh boy gosh and golly does it ever work. I hope you enjoy it; please let me know if you do. 
> 
> (Pro tip, Spotify users: If you would like to experience the Glass Animals song in this chapter the way it’s meant to be heard for the scene—the way I wrote it, and the way Victor hears it—then I highly recommend putting it on repeat and turning on a 12-second crossfade under “Advanced Settings”. You’re welcome.)
> 
> Follow along with the whole soundtrack:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

The next day passes in an excruciating grey blur, each minute oozing by like sludge. Victor is still numb, falling back on the mask he’s cultivated for so many years. He somehow makes it through the day, but every thought and action passes through his brain and leaves just as quickly. If this is his new normal, he thinks, then at least the pain in his heart has subsided to a dull ache instead of the sharp pangs he felt yesterday. It’s about as much as he deserves, really.

Some distant part of him marvels at how quickly he went from normal to nothing, but Victor’s always had a flair for the dramatic. Just ask Yakov, who stands beside him all day at the rink and never so much as glances in Victor’s direction. It’s as if Victor isn’t even there, and even when he does try to actually give Yuri Plisetsky some direction he quickly finds himself run over by the exact same direction from Yakov. At lunch, Yurio scowls at him: “Why are you even here?”

Victor doesn’t have a good answer for him. He can’t do anything but put the hurt into smaller and smaller compartments in his mind.

Mila corners Victor at the rink just as they’re all clearing out for the evening. “Come over to the dorm tonight,” she says, and it isn’t a question.

“That’s probably not a good idea,” he mumbles, zipping up his equipment bag.

“Tomorrow’s our day off! Also, it’s mandatory,” she grins.

“I can’t, Mila.”

She sighs, exasperated. “Listen, Yuri and Georgi are miserable pissants, and new Yuuri—Japanese Yuuri—needs to learn that Team Russia isn’t full of angry people. So we want to have a little party.” Her brows knit together. “Boy, that’s going to be confusing. How do you distinguish Yuri from Yuuri?”

Victor smiles as memories arise. “Yuuri’s sister calls our little Punk by the name of Yurio. It drives him nuts.”

Now Mila grins back impishly. “That is _very_ good to know; thank you, Victor.”

“Not a problem.”

Mila loops her arm through his. “Now, walk with me.”

Victor opens his mouth to protest again, but they’re already out the door. He gulps as the dormitory building comes into view: _I’m sorry, Yuuri. I can’t do anything but hurt you. I just hurt everyone._

In that moment he feels so toxic that he marvels that Mila can’t feel the sting of him through his coat.

“Can I at least go home to shower?” he grumbles. Mila stands on tiptoe to smell his hair, and considers.

“Mmm, no,” she answers. “You smell fine, and I know that if you go home you won’t come back.”

Victor stops, sighing. “Mila, why are you making me do this?”

She looks so genuinely concerned that Victor literally flinches. “You've been acting strangely for the past few days. Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

“I—”

“—No, Victor, I don’t care what it is, you need to be cheered up. You’re going to hang out with us until you’re cheered up.”

Victor wants to say no, but he knows he can’t, and he can’t even explain what’s going on. He hasn’t been able to bring himself to talk about any part of his conversation with Yakov, not even to Makkachin; he’s relived it in his head over and over, though, in a continuous loop of misery that has been going strong for the past 24 hours and shows no signs of stopping. Training today was torture; Victor had to stand beside Yakov and pretend that everything was okay, like the man who’d effectively been his father for two decades hadn’t shattered Victor’s hopes for the future without so much as a halting pause for dramatic effect. He had to watch as Yakov barged in to correct Yuri Plisetsky on his form when exiting his quad toe loop, and when Victor had seen the look on Yuri’s face he bit his tongue until he tasted copper. What is there to say? Where can he even begin?

That’s to say nothing of Yuuri, whose presence is second only to Victor’s own thoughts _about_ Yuuri when it comes to distracting variables messing with his head. But what can he possibly do? Victor can’t exactly stroll up and say “Excuse me, Yuuri, I know we slept together and now we can’t do it again even though we’re in the same city and at the same rink and I’ve noticed that you’re in even better shape than I remember, which doesn’t even seem possible, but here’s the thing: I’m a complete failure at coaching and I’ve lost everything about skating that I loved but I don’t know what else to do with my life, so could you do me a favour and not get that steely look in your eyes when you go for a quad-triple combo? It makes me want to smile when I’m over here trying to hate myself.”

Everything is over, and Victor will wander in professional purgatory for the rest of his life.

When they get inside, Victor sags into a chair in the far corner of the living room; as he watches the dorm residents file in, he’s so worn out by the weight of all the mental burdens he’s carrying that he’s utterly unprepared for how much his stomach drops when Yuuri appears, hair still wet from a shower, wearing a ragged sweater that's just a hair too big in the sleeves. They make eye contact, and Victor half-expects Yuuri to turn around and leave, but instead he just gets a shy smile.

_What the hell is going on?_

_Bad things,_ whispers the sabotaging voice in his brain that runs free behind the public mask.

Victor pulls his phone out of his pocket and checks the time; it's just half past eight. _Half an hour,_ he vows. He'll stay for half an hour, long enough to have one drink and put in an appearance, and then he'll slink home to his apartment, alone where he belongs.

It's all so exhausting. Internally, Victor crumbles, but the shell remains strong. He’ll never let it show.

Tzviya flops onto the love seat, combing her hair over with her fingers. “Georgi! Do you have the stuff?”

Georgi grumbles something unintelligible, but plunks a large bottle of clear liquid onto the coffee table. The label is all in Russian, but Victor sees Yuuri’s eyes widen and his eyebrows nearly climb all the way up into his hair as he figures it out.

“Vodka?”

Tzvia winks. “We won’t tell Yakov if you don’t. Although, I mean, he’s got a bunch of young adults in a house. He has to expect _some_ shenanigans.”

Victor watches Yuuri’s expression shift sideways as he thinks. “He forbade alcohol when I first started training, but then, uh,” he throws a sheepish glance over at Yurio. “We got really drunk while watching Skate Canada.”

Yurio rolls his eyes and is forced to blow his bangs out of his face to complete the gesture with the appropriate amount of gravitas, and the room dissolves into giggles. Victor bites the inside of his lip to keep from joining them, fondly remembering the first time he got drunk with Yakov. For all that the old man yells (and he yells a _lot_ ), Yakov Feltsman isn't stupid, and as long as no one tells, Victor knows he will never ask. Mila comes out of the kitchen with several glasses in her arms, which she deposits onto the coffee table with a flourish, along with a Red Bull for Yurio. She plucks a glass out of the pile and walks over to Victor, holding it out to him.

“So. Are you going to be fun tonight, or mope?” she asks, with a sassy glint in her eye that is so confident that Victor nearly forgets that she’s ten years his junior. He accepts the glass with a half-smile.

“Fun,” he replies, and Mila’s side-eye is so fierce that he can’t help but crack up. “I swear.”

“Don’t pretend you’re an adult all of a sudden,” she grins. “We’ll make sure you don’t do anything untoward with us fragile impressionable skaters. But also you should have some fun.”

 _I really shouldn’t,_ Victor thinks, but Mila is a tiny redheaded force of nature, and he’s not one to argue. Mila goes back to the coffee table, grabs the bottle, and returns to pour him a generous amount of vodka.

“Thank you,” he murmurs, “for the drink. And…and for being so nice to Yuuri.”

Mila beams. “He’s the one who suggested I bring you,” she says, and Victor’s fingers tighten around the glass to the point where he worries it might break. “He’s one of us now. And so are you, Victor. You shouldn’t forget that.”

Victor takes a sip and lets the alcohol hit his head like a spear. “I’ll keep it in mind,” he says, and he tries to mean it.

“Well, when you feel like joining the rest of the class instead of hiding over in the corner, we’ll have a space open for you. Right next to Yurio.”

Victor can’t help but chuckle. “I’m sure he would love that.”

He watches as Mila returns to the group, passing the bottle around. Yuuri initially seems like he might refuse alcohol altogether, but then on second thought he agrees, and takes a small amount which he holds close like a lover, sipping slowly. _So no repeat of the Grand Prix Final banquet,_ Victor concludes. _On the one hand, alas, but on the other hand, probably good, all things considered._ He nurses his own glass as three other skaters come to the couches, all ice dancers who live in the building. The group is large enough to allow him to sit in the background without anyone commenting on it, but small enough that they can only manage one or two conversations simultaneously.

Victor can’t remember the last time he just sat alone at a party. He definitely can’t remember the last time that he sat alone at a party and no one came up to him to beg him to join them, and he’s caught between grateful and shattered at the realization; he has no real energy left to fuel the public mask of Cheerful Victor, but it also hurts so much to realize just how much people don’t need him.

Some part of him has always known, but he got very good at pretending. So good, in fact, that he even fooled himself.

He lets the chatter wash over him like a wave, noticing how his ears prick up whenever Yuuri’s uniquely accented English pops through the din. He’s talking (well, mostly listening) to Mila, Georgi, and Tzviya; Yurio is scowling, his wiry limbs folded in on themselves, but Victor can tell that his student is eavesdropping on the ice dancers and devouring every word of gossip. It goes this way for the first half hour or so, long enough for everyone to finish their first drink and pour a second, before Mila gasps loud enough to bring all conversation to a halt.

“Yuuri!” she exclaims. “You didn’t tell me you like music so much! We should make you the party DJ!”

Yurio rolls his eyes again, Georgi looks skeptical, Yuuri blushes, and Victor is suddenly _very_ aware of the fact that he’s the only person in the room who knows for a fact that that blush extends all the way down Yuuri’s neck to his chest. He downs the rest of his drink in one gulp, and feels his muscles relax for the first time in days.

“I guess I could go get my laptop,” Yuuri says shyly, and Mila claps with delight. He gets up, tugging the sleeves of his sweater down over his palms, and disappears up the stairs.

“Victor! Joining us anytime soon?” Tzviya calls.

He shakes his head coquettishly, hiding safely behind the familiarity of public cheerfulness. “The adult in the room needs to chaperone you children,” he says with a wink, to which Yuri scowls.

“You’re _drinking_ ,” he snarls.

Victor grins, pulling the corners of his mouth upwards until they click into the right place to convey breezy confidence. “Ah yes, a very good point, little Yurio. Could someone pass me the vodka?” He half-expects both Yurio and Georgi to glare at him, but they don’t. No one does.

“Come over here and get it yourself,” Mila replies, and Victor rises from his chair with a groan.

“All right, all right,” he sing-songs, and inside his head he wonders if his cheerfulness has always been this artificial or if he's just noticing it now.

“We’re getting low on vodka,” Tzviya says, jutting her chin at the bottle and grabbing her phone at the same time. “Let me see if I can arrange a delivery.”

As he reaches the table, Victor has to duck at the last minute to avoid a jelly bean that’s been thrown with bullet-like force. He looks over to see Mila, arms folded, scowling with a dedication that rivals Yurio.

“There’s no cause for violence,” Victor says, pouring a little more than he probably should into his glass.

“Tzviya has invited the _entire_ hockey team over,” Mila replies, glaring. “ _Including_ my ex.”

Tzviya throws up her hands in mock defense. “Hey now, I just invited my friends. Alexei tags along to everything.”

Mila sighs exaggeratedly. “You _know_ what will happen.”

“You’re both consenting adults.”

“But he’s such an _idiot_ ,” Mila groans. “And I’m going to hook up with him again and he’s still going to be an idiot.”

Yurio glowers. “You could just not, you know.”

“Oh, Yuri, you’re still young, you don’t understand affairs of the heart.” Mila reaches over to ruffle Yurio’s hair, and he swats her away with such ferocity that he very nearly hisses. Victor, trying desperately to suppress a smile, turns to Georgi instead. He’s looking very glum.

“Is Anya coming?” he mumbles. Tzviya shakes her head.

“Don’t think so. Everyone should be here in about fifteen minutes.”

Victor straightens, grabbing his glass, and when he whirls around—“Oh!”

He nearly runs into Yuuri, who is standing _very_ up close. He’s holding a laptop under one arm.

“Sorry,” Yuuri murmurs, and Victor loses himself in those ridiculously long eyelashes for two seconds before he snaps back behind his mask.

“No, don’t worry,” he replies smoothly. “I didn’t spill on you?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No.”

Victor smiles tightly. “Alright.” And with that, he slides past Yuuri and back to his chair, heart thudding with every step, memories of hitched breaths and panting moans haunting him.

 _Why am I doing this to myself? Why why why?_ Every beat of Victor’s pulse screams the question, suppressed by his skin to a silence that leaves him vibrating with tension in all the wrong ways.

 _Because you deserve it,_ whispers the part of him that knows just how broken he is and always has been.

He settles back into his chair and takes a sip of his drink as he watches Yuuri arrange himself cross-legged on the couch, plug in the room’s speakers, and open his laptop. “I’ll just—oh.”

A song erupts from the speakers immediately, obviously something Yuuri had been listening to just before the party, and— _oh my god_. Something intensely familiar. Victor sees Yuuri’s eyes widen at the same time as his own as he recognizes what the shuffle function has selected.

[ “ _Start panicking, turn into a mannequin / Take a breath now, ahh, begin again / Open your eyes please, turn your smile on / Realign with now as well…”_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kblj3AEjykM)

Victor’s heart has leapt to his throat and it’s almost impossible to swallow, let alone breathe. He searches Yuuri’s face as best he can from afar, and is finding it increasingly hard to pretend there’s anyone else in the room. Yuuri goes pale, but he keeps it together a little better, turning to look at Tzviya and nodding at something she’s just said.

“This is a great song,” he replies to her, looking at Victor as he does, and _holy fucking shit_ his shoulders start to move just a little bit to the beat. Yuuri is dancing. Kinda.

Victor might spontaneously combust. He takes a large drink of vodka, dragging his eyes away from Yuuri to try to make himself less obvious.

Someone knocks loudly at the front door, and Tzviya gets up to let in about eight burly hockey players. Victor doesn’t know any of them other than Alexei, Mila’s on-again-off-again idiot, but they have three more bottles of alcohol to share and they serve to make the room considerably more chaotic. That suits Victor just fine, because he’s still thoroughly shaken by the song that’s still blaring from Yuuri’s laptop.

“ _Chill out, be easy on yourself,”_ sings USS, and Victor pulls his phone out of his pocket, opening Instagram. He scrolls back through his own profile for what seems like forever until he gets to the post he wants—the post he sent Yuuri all those months ago, the spark that ignited the confirmation of contact. He remembers it so vividly; how Yuuri had gone silent for a week, how it had driven Victor to the brink of frenzied madness, how he’d _completely_ accidentally tagged the wrong person in a lyric post. How Yuuri had asked _what do you want from me?,_ and how Victor had replied with barely contained joy: _I’d like to wake up a moment from your smile._

As the singer finishes the song, Victor reads along with the lyrics he sent all those months ago, and his heart aches and leaps in about fifty million ways. _If Yuuri plays Rage and Romance next I will literally die._

As Yo Hello Hooray fades out, Victor braces himself, but instead of a crunchy guitar riff he instead hears a warm fuzzy synth melody. Startled, Victor looks up, across the now-crowded room—and _seriously how the hell do hockey players take up so much space?_ He swears he can see the tiniest little smile on Yuuri’s face, but he doesn’t have time to dwell, because his phone suddenly lights up beside him.

_@katsukiyuuri has a new post on Instagram._

Victor’s heart drops to his toes. _Is he fucking serious?_

He opens the app just in time to read the lyrics just as the musician begins to sing:

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Hello, by Allie X](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXQKOpQXuh8)    _ **Just Now  
** “I'd heard goodbye, goodbye, over and over - I went hollow  
I lost my mind, my mind - life was a bitter pill to swallow  
And though I wanted affection, I was tired of rejection; I kicked the habit   
Yes, I put on love on the shelf and agreed with myself; I’d never have it  
  
It's like you knew  
And you came out  
Out of nowhere and into my life  
It took you a while  
But you found me  
Now I'm sure that I'm gonna survive  
  
And it started with a hello  
Take the lead, and I will follow  
I could love you for the rest of my life  
Don't you ever let me go…”  


Victor looks up from his phone to see Yuuri looking right at him. Intentionally. Deliberately. He might be nuts but he swears he sees Yuuri twitch one eye closed for just a fraction of a second, in the faintest hint of a wink. He has to consciously stop himself from gaping at the audacity of it, and an incredibly warm feeling starts to spread through his chest, making it impossible _not_ to smile, even though he feels like he shouldn't.

Yuuri nods imperceptibly, an acknowledgment that he’s been understood, and then turns to join in on the conversation happening nearby, where Yurio is arguing fiercely with one of the hockey players about the merits of _Game of Thrones_ , and Mila is awkwardly angling herself so she doesn’t have to make eye contact with Alexei. Georgi has disappeared, ostensibly to avoid Anya’s new fling. Several of the hockey players are doing…something. Victor doesn’t even know. They all seem like cavemen to him, even when they’re out of their bulky gear. They're loud and brash, and Victor has never bothered with them, even though he knows for a fact that at least two of them have posters of him.

(Being famous is a little weird sometimes.)

Victor looks back down at his phone, rereading the lyrics Yuuri just posted. He scrolls through his music app to find a reply, and feels a weak spark of the thrill that has become so intricately entwined with the concepts of music and Yuuri.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[I Wanna Be Yours, by Arctic Monkeys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4NGoS330HE)_      **Just Now  
** “Secrets I have held in my heart  
Are harder to hide than I thought  
Maybe I just wanna be yours  
I wanna be yours, I wanna be yours…”

 

He hits Post and looks up to see Yuuri reading something on his laptop, even as he absently nods along with the conversation happening around him. Victor doesn’t know what Yuuri is doing, but he hopes with all his heart that he’s on the browser version of Instagram right this second.

 _What the fuck am I doing?_ he sighs to himself.

 _Good things,_ whispers the vodka that is warming his limbs.

Victor loses himself to the buzz of conversation and alcohol for a few minutes, until the Allie X song ends, and he immediately regains keen interest when he sees Yuuri reach for his laptop again.

“This is a fun one,” Yuuri says to the room, hitting Play on an upbeat track with an infectious beat. Victor waits for a few seconds and then refreshes his Instagram feed, and sure enough:

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Light Out, by Absofacto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDDn1Kv0F5s)_      **15s ago  
** “I leave a light outside, and I hope that you know  
You never gotta hide, like a dead phone fades out into the night  
So baby come on home, where you know  
That the tick-tock of my heart  
Is beating right on time  
Never fast, never slow…”

 

Victor is so affected by the message that he composes and posts a witty-but-genuine response without taking the time to filter everything through the veil of self-loathing he’s been carrying around. By the time he remembers that he needs to feel guilty about talking to Yuuri, or being at this party, or smiling, it’s already too late. Still, he fights to pull himself back under control—an increasingly difficult task, as the minutes tick by and the alcohol keeps flowing.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Criminal, by Fiona Apple](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqWl56-k8tU)_      **Just Now  
** “Oh help me but don't tell me to deny it  
I've got to cleanse myself of all these lies till I'm good enough for him  
I've got a lot to lose  
And I'm bettin' high, so I'm beggin' you  
Before it ends, just tell me where to begin  
  
What I need is a good defense  
'Cause I'm feelin' like a criminal  
And I need to be redeemed  
To the one I've sinned against  
Because he's all I ever knew of love”  


Yuuri can't listen to the songs themselves without broadcasting them to the entire party, so Victor hopes that the lyrics are enough for now. He sees Yuuri smirk behind his laptop screen, and he can't ignore the way his heart leaps to his throat. The hockey players are now loud enough that Victor can't hear what Mila asks Yuuri, but Yuuri's response is to finish his vodka in one smooth motion, to the delighted applause of the girls.

Yurio throws up his hands in exasperation and springs to his feet. “You're all pathetic,” he calls over the music. “This is dumb and you’re going to regret being hungover tomorrow.”

“And you’ll skate _circles_ around us,” Mila proclaims, gesturing with a precariously full vodka glass. “Yes, we know.”

Yurio takes one more look around, sticks his nose high in the air, and stalks off toward the staircase. Tzviya and Mila dissolve into giggles, the hockey players continue being oblivious, and Victor’s phone lights up with another notification. Right on cue, a new song begins to play, and Victor looks up just in time to see Yuuri quickly look down at his computer.

 _Caught you_ , Victor can’t help but think. He opens his phone.  


@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Mirrors, by Justin Timberlake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuZE_IRwLNI)_      **22s ago  
** “Yesterday is history  
Tomorrow's a mystery  
I can see you lookin' back at me  
Keep your eyes on me  
Baby, keep your eyes on me  
  
'Cause I don't wanna lose you now  
I'm lookin' right at the other half of me  
The vacancy that sat in my heart  
Is a space that now you hold  
Show me how to fight for now  
I'll tell you, baby, it was easy   
Comin' back into you once I figured it out  
You were right here all along”  


Victor feels his cheeks get hot and wonders if he’s actually blushing. Someone has turned off the bright overhead lights in favour of some more mood-appropriate table lamps, and in the gloom Yuuri’s computer screen illuminates his face in an eerily beautiful way. The song is a perfect party jam, as evidenced by the fact that Tzviya and the other ice dancers immediately get up and start grooving to the beat, and they’re soon joined by some of the hockey players, obscuring Victor’s line of sight to Yuuri. _Damn it._

As Victor starts scrolling through his own music to find a reply, he can’t help but realize that the Justin Timberlake song is quite long, and that it includes a not-insignificant number of repetitions of the line “ _you are the love of my life,_ ” which makes him knock back the rest of his drink in one go. He’s nicely buzzed now; not drunk, but definitely relaxed enough that he temporarily wonders why he’s supposed to be feeling so down on himself. When he remembers, he curses Two-Minutes-Ago Victor for drinking all the booze.

“ _You are the love of my life…”_

His next lyric is as much a message to himself as it is to Yuuri.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Love Me Better, by Love Thy Brother](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEvGLlo4fLI)    _ **Just Now  
** “I know you want to hide  
But I won't let that slide  
Don't protect your pride  
  
Don't leave me without saying something  
Don't make this out to be nothing  
  
I miss you when you're not here  
And I don't know if I have the right  
To wish that you would come  
Just take me where home is tonight”

 

As he hits Post, Victor is hit with a wave of emotion that he can't quite push back against entirely. _Please,_ he wants to add. He wants to freeze time, turn himself invisible, crawl across this room and beg at Yuuri's feet. _Please. Make me feel something good._

As Justin Timberlake fades away, Victor refreshes Instagram, expecting another dance-pop song. Instead, though, he's hit with a piano chord that surprises him so much that he nearly jumps out of his chair. It's one of his favourite songs from one of his favourite bands.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Tesselate, by Alt-J](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg6BwvDcANg)_     **Just Now  
** “Bite chunks out of me  
You're a shark and I'm swimming  
My heart still thumps as I bleed  
And all your friends come sniffing.  
  
Triangles are my favourite shape  
Three points where two lines meet  
Toe to toe, back to back, let's go, my love; it's very late  
'Til morning comes, let's tessellate”  


Victor bites his lip as a sudden burst of emotional arousal begins to creep into the realm of physical. He hasn't forgotten about the Alt-J song he once sent Yuuri, and it seems that Yuuri hasn't either. The song is softer in pace than the previous tracks have been, and time begins to slide away as it so often does in moments that are sculpted by the hands of alcohol and noise and warm low light. Victor peers through the crowd—how can twenty-odd people _all_ be in his goddamn way?—and catches a glimpse of blue-framed glasses and black hair. Yuuri, who’s sporting a wicked grin that he’s not even trying to hide, who is eternally surprising in ways that make Victor feel hot all over. Yuuri, wearing a ragged sweater whose tensile strength is positively begging to be tested by being ripped from its wearer’s body.

It’s this last thought that pitches Victor headlong into desire, and it pulls at him like gravity and overloads his mind with lightning-quick flashes of two hotel rooms in China. His defences are starting to crumble and Victor holds his head in his hands, trying to sort through clashing thoughts that tug him in two different directions—towards Yuuri, and away from him.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Everything to Hide, by Sarah Jarosz](https://open.spotify.com/track/00tDg76kiPPAVR21vXuEh6)_      **Just Now  
** “I wanna step right out and tell you  
But I know it's not allowed  
Truth is you're all that I can see  
In the middle of this crowd  
  
I wanna tell you that I'm thankful  
For your fingers on those strings  
Wanna whisper low into your ear  
All these forbidden things  
  
But I'll stand right here and hold my tongue  
For all I know I'm the only one  
But do you feel this undercurrent  
And the changing of the tides?  
When I'm with you, baby  
We've got everything to hide”

 

It’s taken him longer to post this song than the previous ones, and by the time Victor looks up from his phone, “Tesselate” has finished. Now a new song begins with the musician calling out the word “ _Incoming!_ ”, and Victor knows a hint when he hears one.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Voodoo, by Bryce Fox](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU6Je6veTfE)_      **Just Now  
** “I know your intake  
My flesh and heartbreak  
My paranoia, my insecurity  
But still I want you all  
I know you, you do voodoo  
I know it  
  
It's like I'm born to play with fire, I think I like it  
I want your trouble by my side, I think I like it  
I want to feel your pins and needles  
Pins and needles  
I know you, you do voodoo”

 

He sucks a breath in through his teeth.

It is one thing to interact with Yuuri’s fuck jams through Instagram, in the intimate environment of just Victor and his headphones. It is _quite_ another to be in the same room as both Yuuri and the song he’s playing, and for that room to be filled with people who have absolutely no idea what’s going on. Victor can’t help it; he listens to the thudding drums and bass line and he wants more than anything to drag Yuuri up to his room so they can be alone. The song itself is hot, but the fact that everyone is listening to it without realizing what it means is fucking electric.

 _I want your trouble by my side, I think I like it_.

The twin hazes of music and alcohol have started to chip away at Victor, and he’s finding it increasingly difficult to remember why it’s so vitally important for him to leave this party alone tonight.

Victor doesn’t know what he wants, but he knows it’s not to go home alone to a shower where he knows he can never wash away the feeling of failure, to a big empty bed that not even Makkachin can help fill, to dark crushing solitude that he can’t bear to accept.

Something breaks inside his brain again, but instead of nothingness Victor feels a _pull_ , stronger than he could have imagined it.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Hostage, by Sia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXMHOPL7QpU)_      **Just Now  
** “It all begins with just one kiss  
I'm held hostage by your love  
Put me in cuffs, lock me up  
I'm held hostage by your touch  
This prison is rough but I can't get enough  
The secret life of us keeps me in handcuffs  
Don't lock me up, don't you wanna free us  
I'm held hostage by your love.”  


As he presses Post, Victor closes his eyes and casually crosses his wrists together behind his back. His breath escapes in a sudden burst as if he’s been struck; the fantasy hits him hard, a vivid scene that isn’t so much about visuals or sounds as it is emotions: a sense of control, and a sense of—

 _No._ He slams on the mental brakes and opens his eyes to see Yuuri watching him intently, and even though people are still crossing back and forth across the room it feels like there’s no one else in the world but them. Victor feels lightheaded, but it isn’t from the alcohol.

Something is happening to him. A need, an urge, a desperate sense of _want_ that feels like it’s driving the air from his lungs and the oxygen from his blood. It’s time for the next song, and Victor can’t stop himself from watching Yuuri’s every move—and Yuuri seems to know he’s being watched, as he moves excruciatingly slowly and with a sly grin plastered on his face. Victor’s entire mind has fallen into this new intoxicating void, and he forces himself to wait instead of obsessively refreshing Instagram as fast as his fingers can move.

It feels like an eternity and with every passing millisecond the feeling gets stronger.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Strange Love, by Halsey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-Jo25SL56A)    _ **Just Now  
** “Everybody's waiting up to hear if I dare speak your name  
Put it deep beneath the track, like the hole you left in me  
And everybody wants to know 'bout how it felt to hear you scream  
They know you walk like you're a God, they can't believe I made you weak”  


Victor listens to the song pulse around him and wonders if he has a fever.

_I want. I need._

He clenches and unclenches his fists.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Infinity, by Niykee Heaton](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0_y8ENgGlY)_      **Just Now  
** “I can still feel your breath all over me, filling me  
I could fuck with you for eternity, infinity  
Turn all the lights on, I could be your lover,  
I could be the one for you and no one else at all  
  
So how long will it be till you see how bad I need this?  
I'll give you all if you please never leave, I need to keep it  
I could fuck with you for infinity”  


Victor stands up, pacing back and forth like Makkachin does when he’s restless. The party continues around him, so effortless that he wonders if he’s just dreaming, or if he’s turned invisible.

Part of him aches over the implications of any sort of invisibility, but it’s washed away by a word Victor is repeating over and over like a mantra: _Please. Please. Please._

_Please see how bad I need this._

He doesn’t even know what ‘this’ is.

The Halsey song concludes, leaving the room just buzzing with conversation. Out of the corner of his eye Victor sees Yuuri lean over to Tzviya, who’s sitting next to him. He whispers something in her ear, and she nods. Then Yuuri leans over and unplugs his laptop from the speakers, and as he leans away Tzviya swoops in seamlessly to plug her phone in its place; she starts playing a song that’s slinky and cool. Victor feels the blood drain from his face. _That can’t be it. He can’t be—_

Yuuri stands up and yawns, and as he stretches his arms over his head the sweater rides up just a little, exposing a stripe of bare skin. With a wave of his hand, he grabs his laptop and disappears upstairs; Victor stops breathing, and inside his head he screams for Yuuri to stop, for him to stay, because he _can’t_ be leaving the party. Yuuri can’t be leaving Victor here alone. He nearly keels over when his phone lights up in his hand.

_@katsukiyuuri has a new post on Instagram._

_Thank fucking god_ , Victor thinks, impatiently punching his passcode into the phone.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Make You Feel, by Alina Baraz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_hNsq5e5W0)_      **Just Now  
** “Breathe, breathe me in, taste my words, let me blow your mind  
I will take you far, far away  
I’ll make you feel alright  
You’ve gotta crave it and chase it  
Until you’re close enough to taste it  
I can give you what you need”  


It’s not the song that’s playing in the room. This is just for Victor.

And then, a new direct message:  


@katsukiyuuri: _Third floor, next to the obnoxiously blaring music._

 

Victor instantly grabs his coat off the back of his chair and shrugs it on. “I’m off!” he calls cheerfully to the room, waving as he crosses to the hallway. “See you all tomorrow. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

Mila and a few of the hockey players wave goodbye, and Victor stops to pull his shoes on his feet and wrap his scarf around his face, shedding his rictus grin as soon as the fabric covers his mouth. He walks towards the back of the building, into a foyer with a pair of doors side by side: one leads outside, and the other leads to one of the building’s stairwells. After a glance around to make sure he’s totally unseen, Victor slips through the door to the stairwell, closing it as gently as he can before creeping up the stairs.

Three flights, every step tense and controlled, every tiptoe ramping up the feeling in his gut that’s like springs being tightened. Victor reaches the third floor and takes his time, ensuring there’s no one in the bathroom as he passes by. The first door he sees has a large sticker of a tiger plastered just above the knob, and Victor freezes in place. _Yurio._

He holds his breath, but he can hear Yurio inside, talking to his cat, so Victor creeps a few more steps down the hall, past a door on the other side which is almost reverberating with the bass from the music that’s blaring from within the room. _That would be Georgi_ , Victor notes. Which means the door right next to it is—

Victor’s hand falters when he reaches for the knob, and he very nearly turns tail and runs away, but at the last minute the door opens to reveal Yuuri.

Victor’s mouth goes completely dry. Yuuri doesn’t say anything; he just stands off to one side to let Victor in, and then he closes the door and locks it.

Victor stops in the middle of the room and glances around. The bedroom style and layout has remained pretty much unchanged since his time in this building: bed, desk, closet, window. A few cardboard boxes plastered with Priority Air stickers are stacked in the corner; Yuuri’s things must have just arrived.

_Oh shit, right, Yuuri._

He turns around to see Yuuri standing by the door, looking at him, and Victor scrambles for something to say.

“You weren’t kidding about the blaring music,” is what he comes up with.

Yuuri glances over at the wall he shares with Georgi and then back to Victor, and he gets a glint in his eye that makes Victor feel like a hand has just wrapped around his windpipe. “One second,” he whispers, and he opens his laptop and plugs it into a set of cube-shaped speakers that sit on the desk. Yuuri hits a button and a thudding song begins, flooding the room with a frankly impressive amount of sound. He turns back to where Victor stands, still frozen in place, and smiles.

“If Georgi is going to blast music, and the party’s going to keep going, then we might as well blast some right back,” he says, by way of explanation.

[ “ _I wanna make it right / I wanna make you cry…”_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxrOrr0jFdM) croon the singers, vaguely familiar, and Victor’s brows knot together.

“It’s Glass Animals,” Yuuri says, before Victor can even ask. “All of Georgi’s music is super bass-heavy, so, uh, I thought…I mean, never mind.”

 _Say something, Victor. Please._ Victor feels like he’s choking; he pulls his scarf off, tossing it on the bed.

Yuuri takes a few steps closer, until he’s inside Victor’s personal space, and Victor’s skin prickles with the invisible sensation of untouched intimacy. He feels himself pulling his limbs back, restraining from even the possibility of contact.

Yuuri grins. “You know,” he says, “I’m going to run out of big grand musical gestures at some point.”

In some parallel universe where he hasn’t had a crash into near-total depression, Victor Nikiforov grins back. He says some kind of snarky-but-sweet comment, maintaining a perfect balance between charm and sincerity; he feels the public mask click back into place on top of him like a perfectly fitted sarcophagus, and he thinks it protects him.

In this universe, Victor opens his mouth to speak, but the mask is suffocating him; the sarcophagus is blocking out all light and air, confining him to a trap whose walls are closing in, so instead his knees give out and he sits hard on the bed, trying to remember how to breathe, trying to stop himself from bursting into laughter or tears. Victor feels the bed dip with Yuuri’s weight as he sits down, their hips touching, and gentle fingers come to rest on his shoulder.

“Victor?”

At the sound of his name Victor screws his eyes closed tighter than he even thought possible and clenches his fists until they ache. There’s so much to explain to Yuuri, so much of that explanation to self-edit so it doesn’t cause any worry, so much of himself he has to sculpt in order to fit that story—all of it demanding energy that he no longer has. Victor feels as though there’s a dam trying to reshape his emotions, and it’s barely holding itself together.

“ _I follow suit, I follow suit / I follow suit, I follow…”_

The music calls to him, a siren in the midst of a stormy ocean, promising impossible pleasures if he could just let go of the ship’s wheel. Victor always wondered why the sailors of ancient myth fell for such a ruse; now, he knows.

He turns to the side and leans forward, eyes still closed, pressing his forehead to Yuuri’s, and the contact is so solid and _present_ that he feels himself crumble even more against it.

There’s so much, _too_ much, and Victor doesn’t know where to begin or what to say or even if he can, but he opens his mouth anyway to try.

Instead he says, in a desperate whisper, “kiss me. _Please._ ”

For one liminal moment, one heartbeat of complete silence, nothing happens. In that moment Victor is entirely sure he will curl up and die in a million different ways, but then— _oh,_ then.

The first time he and Yuuri kissed, in Beijing, Victor had held out for as long as he could before he broke and gave in to temptation. Their first kiss was rough and desperate, fast and intense. This one is unbearably gentle, a chaste press of skin on skin, a whisper instead of a shout. Victor whimpers into the kiss as it deepens; Yuuri’s hand wraps around his shoulders and Victor feels his muscles relax, aching now from tension he hasn’t realized he’s carrying.

“ _I follow suit, I follow suit / I follow suit, I follow…”_ The song is hypnotic and primal, one repetition blending seamlessly into the next until it seems like there’s nothing but this room, this person, this song, this night.

He’s warm all over and manages to pull off his heavy coat without once breaking the kiss, tossing it away to the floor with only the barest thought. Somewhere deep in his mind Victor tries to remember to joke later about how Yuuri is the only man who’s ever taken precedence over a custom-made peacoat, but in the end it honestly doesn’t matter.

Yuuri pulls away, but Victor chases his lips even as they part to speak. “Victor—”

 _No,_ Victor thinks. _No Victor. Not in that tone. Not tonight. Please just—_

“—Victor, are you—”

“—I’m not drunk,” he says breathlessly, finally pulling away and forcing his eyes open. “Not unreasonably, anyway.”

For a second Yuuri looks as if he wants to ask something else, but to Victor’s great relief he just kisses him again.

“ _Stop swaying when they move or shake it down / Makes mama turn her hands and flip around…”_

Victor opens his eyes and sees the blissed-out look on Yuuri’s face and it isn’t goddamn _enough_ , and he grabs Yuuri’s threadbare sweater as he falls backwards onto the pillow, pulling Yuuri down on top of him. Yuuri squeaks in surprise, but he gets the idea very quickly, straddling Victor’s hips.

 _Yes,_ Victor thinks. _God, yes._

He feels Yuuri’s fingertips dancing along the edge of his shirt, close but still not touching—so gentle, so reverent, so reserved.

“Please,” he whispers by way of encouragement, and his breath hitches when Yuuri’s hand finally makes contact, lazily moving up and down his ribs. “More. All of it. _Everything_.” Impatient and needy, Victor unbuttons his shirt and yanks it open, sitting up so he can pull it off his shoulders. Yuuri sits back onto his lap, eyes unreadable, and Victor still feels so hot that his skin might crack.

“What are you—”

“—Please,” is all Victor can say, pulling Yuuri’s sweater up over his head, tossing it away into the dark. Yuuri’s kisses are steadily hungry, and once they’re both bare-chested he grinds down on Victor’s lap in a way that makes them both gasp mid-kiss. Victor wraps his hands around Yuuri’s back and feels him shiver into the touch, goosebumps erupting in his wake as he runs his fingers up to Yuuri’s shoulders and down his arms to his hands. Just as Victor’s about to pull away, Yuuri grabs each of Victor’s hands in his own, interlacing their fingers together, and Victor can’t control the stuttering jerk of his hips in response.

“ _Back lashing with a bullet full of love / Makes papa wanna chrome up his old truck…”_

“I have—supplies,” Yuuri whispers, casting a glance at the bedside table, and Victor can see he’s blushing even in the dim hint of moonlight through the window.

“Do you want to?” Victor knows the answer, but he asks anyway.

Yuuri’s blush gets darker. “Um, yes,” he says, almost teasingly. Then he gets that serious look again, eyes glittering as he searches Victor’s face. “…do you?”

Victor opens his mouth, but nothing comes out; the word _yes_ is beyond insufficient. “Yuuri, I need—” he swallows, eyes trailing to where their fingers are intertwined, and in a moment of inspiration he gently pulls Yuuri’s hand out of his and guides it to close around his wrist.

 _Please,_ he wants to beg. _Please understand._ Yuuri’s eyes widen.

“Victor, are you okay?”

He shakes his head. “No, I’m not,” he breathes, remembering their direct message thread, and the question he left unanswered. “Help me, Yuuri. Please.”

Yuuri leans forward to kiss him, sweet and heartfelt. “What do you need?” he murmurs against Victor’s mouth.

“ _I follow suit, I follow suit, I follow suit, I follow…”_

Victor buries his face in Yuuri’s shoulder, basking in the warmth of his skin. “Please fuck me,” he whispers, biting back all sorts of noises as Yuuri grinds down onto his lap. “Do whatever you want with me. I’m yours. Just…take control. I can’t—I’m so tired.” He feels himself sag as he says it. “ _God_ , Yuuri, I’m so tired.”

For a minute it seems like Yuuri might not understand, or might say no, or might not want to—but then he leans forward, guiding Victor back down to the pillow and pinning his wrist to the mattress. Victor moans as Yuuri tightens his hand experimentally; in response, Yuuri leans down, until their lips are nearly touching.

“You’re going to have to be quieter than that,” he whispers, and Victor can _feel_ him smiling wickedly. “The walls here are incredibly thin.” Victor tries to lean forward to kiss Yuuri, but he pulls back, just out of reach, and in that moment Victor remembers exactly why he gave Yuuri the Eros routine in the first place.

Yuuri’s eyes never waver as he reaches up to pull the pillow out from underneath Victor’s head. He brings Victor’s other arm up, crossing his wrists together behind his head, and then puts the pillow over them and guides Victor’s head back down onto it, trapping his hands beneath. “Don’t move,” he orders as he shimmies down Victor’s body, trailing tiny kisses in between his ribs, tracing nonsense patterns with his tongue, hands already at Victor’s belt buckle. Victor bites his lip to keep from gasping as Yuuri pulls off his pants and boxers, arching into the air that hits his skin.

“ _Stop swaying when they move or shake it down / Makes mama turn her hands and flip around…”_

“Close your eyes,” Yuuri murmurs, lips hovering just above Victor’s erection, and he obeys. Yuuri’s tongue barely brushes the head of his cock and Victor bucks upwards in response; Yuuri pushes him back down to the mattress with firm fingers at his hipbones. “Don’t move,” he whispers again, a little more forcefully; Victor has barely nodded _yes_ before Yuuri swallows him whole, and he nearly passes out from the restraint required to keep from thrusting upwards _oh my god Yuuri Katsuki has no gag reflex Jesus fuck—_

Victor gapes, mouth open wide to avoid making noise. His hands, trapped beneath his head and the pillow, grab desperately at the fabric and squeeze until his fingers start to hurt.

“ _Back lashing with a bullet full of love / Makes papa wanna chrome up his old truck…”_

Victor has had his share of sexual partners, and in the past he’s always taken note of their style and prowess, adapting his own skills to complement theirs, transforming himself in little ways to be the perfect lover—he knows he is a memory that will be cherished and recalled and vaguely bragged about at parties years down the line. Now, in this single bed in a little dorm room filled with darkness and pounding music, he completely forgets to do any of that. Yuuri’s mouth on his cock, his fingers opening Victor up—there’s no comparison, just pure action and reaction. He experiences each sensation as if anew, an abstract block of pleasure that suggests reality while boiling it down to its essence. Victor forgets everything—his previous partners, his own intentions, which tricks he hasn’t used yet—and squeezes his eyes shut, surrounded by the song, and there is nothing else in the universe but this. When Yuuri’s lube-slicked fingers graze his prostate Victor cries out softly, and Yuuri _tsks_.

“I told you to be quiet,” he murmurs, voice like velvet.

“I’m sorry,” Victor whispers, eyes still shut. He’s trembling with the effort required to keep himself still; he wants to grab Yuuri by the hair and fuck his mouth relentlessly, wants to flip them both over and ravish Yuuri until he makes the same noises he did in Beijing, wants to scratch the small nagging itch in his mind that demands he perform all the things that make Victor Nikiforov a good lay. But all he can do instead is writhe beneath Yuuri’s touch, surrendering himself to every sensation with no idea of what’s about to happen next, and the ability to let everything else go is such a rush that Victor can’t inhale without shuddering.

“ _Stop swaying when they move or shake it down / Makes mama turn her hands and flip around…”_

Yuuri continues, asking questions in a whisper that Victor tries to answer coherently— _is this okay? Keep going? Is it too much?_

 _Yes. Yes. No._ Victor feels a bead of sweat run down his sternum. “I’m ready,” he pants.

Yuuri obliges; Victor hears the bedside table drawer open and then shut, and then the crinkle of a condom wrapper, and then—another condom wrapper? Maybe Yuuri messed up the first one—

“Open your eyes,” Yuuri says, and when Victor does he sees Yuuri hovering a few inches above his cock, a condom held gently in his mouth. Yuuri makes eye contact and gives a downright evil wink before diving forward, unrolling the condom onto Victor’s cock in one smooth motion, and Victor breaks another rule and claps his hand over his mouth to suppress the keening moan he makes. Yuuri arches an eyebrow, and Victor puts his hand back under the pillow, but Yuuri’s expression only gets more wicked.

“Turn over,” he orders in a whisper. Victor obeys; Yuuri straddles his thighs and scratches a single fingernail all the way down his back, drawing out a shudder so intense that Victor thinks it may never end. He’s achingly hard, rutting against the mattress instinctively, gasping out again when Yuuri licks all the way up the line he’s just scratched and lies on top on him, cock sliding between his cheeks.

“ _Back lashing with a bullet full of love / Makes papa wanna chrome up his old truck…”_

“Do you want me to fuck you?” Yuuri pants into Victor’s ear.

“Yes,” Victor hisses, pushing back against Yuuri’s cock.

Yuuri’s teeth graze the back of Victor’s neck. “Say it.”

“Please fuck me,” Victor begs. Yuuri teasingly grinds onto his ass one more time before sitting back for a moment, and Victor hears the lube bottle cap open and then shut, and then _fuck yes_ Yuuri’s cock is pressing against his entrance, slowly pushing inside, glacially slow, and then he goddamn _stops_ —

“More,” Victor moans, louder than he intended. “You can—please, I need—go faster—”

Yuuri still goes slow, but smoothly now, pressing his chest to Victor’s back with a groan as he bottoms out. He stays there for a moment, hands roaming up and down Victor’s sides, up along his arms, and he grasps Victor’s wrists again as he thrusts for the first time, breath escaping hot against Victor’s neck.

“ _I follow suit, I follow suit, I follow suit, I follow…”_

Yuuri releases Victor’s wrists, bracing himself against the bed; he rolls his hips, nailing Victor’s prostate almost perfectly, and Victor finds and grips the top edge of the mattress, holding on for dear life.

“Good?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he whimpers, word half-lost as Yuuri moves again and pleasure radiates through every nerve.

“ _I follow suit, I follow suit, I follow suit, I follow…”_

Yuuri’s body is warm and solid on top of him, his hips rolling in ways that shouldn’t be legal; Victor pushes back, matching his rhythm and slipping one hand down to wrap around his own cock. He can feel Yuuri’s panting breath against his back, and then a kiss to his shoulder blade as they speed up, and a guttural moan escapes Victor’s lips—

“Be _quiet_ ,” Yuuri gasps out against Victor’s neck, and Victor draws in a shuddering breath and turns his head to nip gently at the skin of Yuuri’s forearm, braced on the mattress.

“Make me,” he growls back. In response, Yuuri thrusts hard, and at the same time clamps his hand over Victor’s mouth before he can cry out again.

Victor lets out a muffled noise and Yuuri pulls his hand away a little. “Okay?” he asks.

“Yes,” Victor nearly sobs, the very last of the _s_ sound cut off as Yuuri’s hand returns, covering his mouth while carefully leaving his nostrils unobstructed. Victor whimpers as Yuuri thrusts again, harder, faster, and he strokes himself just as Yuuri nails his prostate one last time and the combination pushes Victor over the edge and he buries his face in the pillow to silently scream as he comes. He feels Yuuri come at about the same time, gasping into the flesh of his shoulder, and it feels like eternity before he comes back down to earth.

Yuuri pulls out of him and Victor turns over, accepting an offered tissue for condom disposal purposes, and then raking his hand through his sweat-soaked hair. He tips his head back, breathing slow and deep, and as Yuuri curls up beside him a true smile creeps across his face. His head feels clear for the first time in days.

“Yakov told me my career is over.” Seven words escape Victor’s lips before he has the chance to think about it, and then they hang in the air, a torrent of emotion boiled down to ten syllables. He blinks.

Yuuri arches an eyebrow. “Why on earth would he say that?”

“I’m twenty-seven,” Victor replies, marvelling at how calm he sounds. Endorphins are _amazing_. “I can’t return to skating next year. I hate coaching Yurio. I’m—” he gulps. “I’m unhappy. I’ve been unhappy for a really long time.” He was convinced it would crush him to say it out loud, but instead Victor inhales deep and realizes that it no longer feels as if someone is sitting on his chest.

Yuuri sits up. “Victor, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Are you happy right now?”

Victor can’t help but grin. “Yeah,” he whispers, nuzzling his nose against Yuuri’s. “You make me happy.”

Yuuri pauses, and something flashes in his eyes for a fraction of a second before he leans in for a kiss. “Then be happy,” he murmurs, as if it’s that easy. “Every time you’re unhappy, just look at me.”

“Yuuri.”

“I’m serious,” he says. “You asked me to have a steamy secret affair; I’m taking you up on that offer, starting…like, an hour ago, I guess.”

Victor sighs silently. “We could get caught."

Yuuri’s eyes are sparkling like goddamn diamonds. “Victor, I—” he swallows. “I don’t want to have any regrets about this year. At least, not any more than I already have. We should—we should make the most of the time we have.”

Victor’s heart lurches. Poor Yuuri, so worried he won’t do well enough in the Grand Prix to be able to stay in Russia. _If Yakov fires him then I’ll take him on,_ he vows in that instant, and externally he smiles.

“Okay,” he replies. “Let’s do it.”

Yuuri leans over and bites Victor’s bottom lip gently. “I’d love to, but you’ll need to give me a few minutes,” he jokes, barely finishing the sentence before yawning wide.

Victor melts, and he wraps his arms around Yuuri and gathers him to his chest. “All right,” he mumbles, eyelids also heavy. “A few minutes.”

They wake up three hours later, after the dorm has gone quiet and dark, and Victor knows he needs to go back to his place now instead of trying to sneak out in the morning. This time, he wakes up Yuuri.

“I should go,” he whispers.

“Hm—are you okay?” Yuuri mumbles, blinking.

Victor smiles easily. “Yeah,” he replies honestly. “I am. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When he gets back to his apartment and deflects Makkachin’s scolding with treats, Victor pulls out his phone to send Yuuri a message that he got home safe. He opens Instagram, struck by an incredibly romantic idea.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[When You’re Smiling and Astride Me, by Father John Misty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg4xkW2Zt5A)    _ **Just Now  
** “I can hardly believe I found you and I’m terrified by that”

 

He goes to direct message Yuuri anyways, just in case he’s asleep, but he doesn’t have to:

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[You Matter to Me, by Sara Bareilles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GU1gKmZYFVc)    _ **Just Now  
** “I could find the whole meaning of life in those sad eyes  
They've seen things that you never quite say, but I hear  
Come out of hiding, I'm right here beside you  
And I'll stay there as long as you let me  
  
Because you matter to me  
Simple and plain and not much to ask from somebody  
You matter to me  
I promise you do, you, you matter too  
I promise you do, you see?  
You matter to me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to my writer wife spookyfoot for suggesting “Criminal”, and for the anon on Tumblr who recommended “You Matter to Me.” 
> 
> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri)  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) and [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me)
> 
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right)  
> \- shemakesmeforget made a lovely [mood board](https://shemakesmeforget.tumblr.com/post/161818989903/setting-sun-by-iwritevictuuri-fic-rec) <3
> 
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXQKOpQXuh8&index=85&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)


	16. Pull Me in Like Gravity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey. So. It's been six weeks since the last update.  
> In all honesty, I went through some rough emotional stuff regarding this story, and I had to walk away from it for a little while. The last two chapters were incredibly intense and they drained me in ways that I didn't even realize, and I got stuck in that intense mindset for longer than I thought. I really didn't like this fic for a good month or so, and it broke my heart to sit down and hate everything I even thought about writing. I was terrified that if I walked away and took a break that I'd never come back; but one day after a few weeks off, I realized that I'd fallen back in love with this story, and that the time and space was exactly what I needed. And once I started again, this chapter happened very easily.  
> I want to thank spookyfoot and fullmetalchords for patiently reminding me that it was okay to stop writing if it made me cry, and also that it was okay to have fun and just write smooching skate boys and silly jokes again. 
> 
> Thank you all for your patience. I have some of the kindest, sweetest readers in the fandom and your words of support were always seen and always appreciated. <3 
> 
> Follow along with the whole soundtrack:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

Yuri is pulled out of sleep by a small paw lightly smacking him on the nose. He opens his eyes to find his entire field of vision taken up by two gigantic blue eyes and a mask of black-and-cream fur.

“Not breakfast time yet,” he grumbles to the cat, turning over. “Go away.”

Potya is not fooled by this strategy, and with a leap and a gentle _thump_ she lands in front of Yuri’s face and smacks him again, a little more insistently this time. When he opens his eyes, glowering, she gives a trilling _chrrrrp?_ and immediately begins to purr.

Against his will, Yuri smiles.

“Fine,” he grunts, pulling his mouth back down into a scowl, throwing the covers aside and rolling out of bed. He gives Potya a scoop of dry food and pulls on some workout clothes, tying his hair back in a messy knot.

The dorm is completely silent as Yuri descends the stairs; as he swings into the kitchen to grab a protein bar, he can’t help but roll his eyes at the big stack of glasses sitting by the sink. Yuri is, by necessity, mature for his age—not an uncommon result of moving away from home before you’ve even had your growth spurt—but he doesn’t really understand the point of alcohol; it just serves to make dumb people even dumber.

He finishes tying up his boot with a sharp yank. _At least the Japanese piggy didn’t make a complete fool of me this time._ It’s hard to believe that Katsuki’s even here. It's hard to believe that Yakov, or Victor for that matter, ever left for Japan in the first place.

The thought makes Yuri want to snarl. His hands squeeze into fists inside his mittens.

The first lungful of morning air is so cold it feels like it might freeze him from the inside out. As he walks to the arena, Yuri flicks through his music collection, his mouth set in a thin line. The music from the party seemed to go on forever last night, between the idiots downstairs and Georgi across the hall playing what sounded like two or three songs at the same time, until Yuri finally dug out a pair of earplugs from the back of his desk drawer.

The party, though. Fuck.

It was eerie, to see Victor sit so far away from everyone, to see him lost in his own world and looking at his phone like he was shy. In the years that they’ve shared a rink, Yuri has never seen Victor look as shell-shocked as he has over the past few days. The reappearance of Yakov—and, Yuri supposes, the Japanese pig—has apparently thrown Russia’s Sweetheart for a loop. Yuri expected that, and even relished the idea, but last night Victor seemed…broken.

Somewhere, far away in his mind, Yuri wonders if he caused this.

He never meant to. He never asked for it—except that he did, multiple times, and went all the way to Japan to get what he thought he wanted. Yuri made the Hot Springs on Ice deal knowing he could probably win. It’s not his fault that Victor’s a terrible coach, but it is one hundred percent his fault that Victor is _his_ coach.

Be careful what you wish for.

It’s still not fair. It’s not _fair_.

Yuri bites the inside of his lip until it almost bleeds. He’s said those three words out loud exactly once, as a very young child. He learned never to say them again, just as he learned never to complain when he could feel blood pooling between his toes after hours and hours on the ice, and just as he learned never to ask his mother for money even when he was sure it technically belonged to him.

When he gets to the arena, he takes the stairs two at a time to get to the small gym complex on the second floor. As the air conditioning whirs to life, Yuri swaps his winter boots for his running shoes and turns up the song he’s listening to until he can’t hear anything else, tossing it on to Instagram for good social-media-vagueing measure.

 

@yuriplisetsky: _Lyric Post -[Easy Tiger, by Portugal. the Man](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aWfb9-Ls_4)_      **Just Now  
** “Easy tiger  
Only 16 goin’ on forever  
Easy tiger  
You’re only 16 goin’ on forever  
  
Gasping for air I’m chokin’  
Running with no sign of slowin’  
Till my legs are broken  
Easy tiger  
Gasping for air I’m chokin’  
Running with no sign of slowin’  
Dumb coconut, can’t break it open  
Easy tiger  
You’re only 16 goin’ on forever”

 

He runs for over an hour. The treadmill tries to go into automatic cool down mode twice, and each time Yuri punches at the buttons until it speeds back up again, letting the music mix with the rhythmic thumps of his feet and lull him into a space where he almost feels calm. He runs until he’s exhausted, probably a hair longer than he should, but when Yuri finally stops, leaning on the treadmill to catch his breath, he feels a little bit lighter.

A quick shower later and he’s ready for a proper breakfast, slipping out of the athlete’s entrance as quietly as he came. Yuri survives on as simple a diet as humanly possible; he knows exactly what to buy that will provide him with the maximum necessary protein and carbs for the lowest possible price. But the dorm is going to be full of severely hungover idiots all morning and he’s got even less patience when he’s starving, so Yuri turns left instead of right at the end of the street, shuffling through the snow to the cafe two blocks over. It’s still early and the weather is rotten, so the place will probably be nice and quiet, too, which is a bonus. He’s already mentally picking out fillings for his _blini_ when he pulls open the door—

—and is nearly knocked off his feet by fifty pounds of excited canine.

“M-Makkachin? What the _hell?_ Get off me!” Yuri yelps. “Your breath smells awful!”

He hears a familiar chuckle, and sure enough, there’s stupid Victor, holding a stupid cup of coffee and completely failing to restrain his stupid dog. “Yurio, you know dogs can’t brush their teeth.”

_Maybe if I roll my eyes hard enough they’ll just fall right out of my head._

An outstretched hand appears in his field of vision; Yuri thinks for a split second about declining it, but in the end he accepts, allowing Victor to pull him to his feet and trying to ignore the stares of the cafe staff as he brushes the winter slush from the back of his coat.

“Want some breakfast?” Victor asks. Yuri’s stomach growls right on cue, and he glowers.

“That _was_ my plan, yes,” he mumbles, pushing past Victor to the counter. As he orders his food, Yuri can feel Victor’s eyes on his back. _Why is he still here? Why can’t he just leave already?_

Yuri makes no attempt whatsoever at conversation as he waits for his _blini_. He stares at his phone the entire time, even as he can see Makkachin panting slightly out of the corner of his eye.

“Do you want this for here or wrapped up to go?” the cashier drones.

Yuri thinks of the agony of trying to make small talk with Victor, weighs it against how much he’ll have to talk to the skaters at the dorm, and then sighs. “To go, I guess.”

Victor appears by his side. “Actually, he’ll stay!” he chirps to the cashier. He turns to Yuri. “Sit with us?”

Yuri pauses for a moment, scowling until his face muscles ache, but the second his food appears on the counter in front of him he knows it’s a lost cause; he’s ravenous and exhausted, the intensity of his workout suddenly hitting him, so he silently follows Victor to a table and flops down.

For a good ten minutes the only sounds are Yuri’s knife and fork against his plate and Makkachin’s rhythmic panting. As he swallows the last bite of his meal, Yuri weighs the pros and cons of breaking the silence, but he can’t think of where to begin.

Victor runs his fingers absently through his hair. “Yuri, what did you want me to be to you?” he asks softly. “A father figure? A brother? A friend?”

Yuri’s jaw drops open. “What is _wrong_ with you?”

Victor looks over, hand resting on Makkachin’s scruff. “What do you mean?”

Exasperated, Yuri smacks his palm to his forehead. “You went from being the most awarded skater on the planet to…to _this!_ To asking me stupid questions and letting Yakov walk all over you and just being…” his hands clench into fists again. “Just do me a favour and either be a fucking coach or let Yakov take over.”

“Do you want that?”

Yuri feels like he should yell, but instead his voice is low and soft. “Victor, since when have you cared at _all_ what I want?”

No answer.

Yuri can hear the _Sunshine_ Adagio in his mind.

“I went to Lilia,” he says, staring at a mismatched tile on the floor in front of him. “She was the one who called Yakov. Not me.”

“I know,” comes the reply, so quietly that Yuri almost doesn’t hear it. He blinks, looking up at Victor, who seems to be staring at the same tile on the floor with the same intense focus, likely for the same _if-I-don't-make-eye-contact-I-won't-do-something-stupid-like-cry_ reason.

“You…do?”

Victor nods. “Yakov told me,” he says, and the corner of his mouth tilts up into a crooked half-smile. “He was…not subtle about it.”

“When?” There’s something horrible twisting inside of Yuri’s stomach, and it isn’t the _blini_.

“Two days ago,” Victor says, and despite his casual demeanor Yuri sees his hand tighten on Makkachin’s fur, as if for comfort—or purchase.

Puzzle pieces begin to click together in Yuri’s head. “Did he—“

“—rip me several new assholes and tell me my competitive career is over? Yeah. And I deserved it.”

Yuri's never been stunned speechless before.

“In all honesty, he was right. I haven’t been very fair to you,” Victor murmurs.

In that moment Yuri wants nothing more than to jump up and scream _yeah no fucking shit_ until he's hoarse, but instead he inhales through flared nostrils, which is apparently answer enough, because Victor continues, speaking steadily as he stirs his coffee with a small spoon.

“I’ve been absorbed in my own life, and I haven’t listened to you as much as I could have. I was…I’ve been—” he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing. “I haven’t been the coach you deserve. And I know it’s late, probably too late, but I’d like to apologize for that. And I’d like to do better going forward, for the rest of the season. There’s still Rostelecom and the Final; you could theoretically change up an entire routine in that span of time.” Victor chuckles a little, and Yuri narrows his eyes.

“The routines are fine,” he replies coolly.

“I know,” Victor says, giving Makkachin’s ears a scratch. "Anyway. I'm sorry. For whatever it's worth."

Yuri takes three deep breaths. _My competitive career is over_. He doesn't know why, but the phrase makes him feel like his stomach has dropped to his toes.

"I assumed you were coming back next year," he mumbles.

Victor laughs again, the same small and mostly humourless sound. "Did you want to compete against me, Yurio?"

_Fuck._

In the long and awkward stretch of silence that follows, Yuri imagines his own death several times over and tosses in a few fantasies of murdering Victor just for good measure before he starts to feel guilty that Potya would be orphaned. _And Makkachin too, I guess._

Finally, _finally_ , Victor clears his throat and stands up, grabbing Yuri's plate along with his own mug to put them in the bussing tray beside the counter. Makkachin stands up too, tail thudding rapidly against Yuri's shin.

"Come on," Victor says cheerfully, grabbing his coat from the back of his chair. "Let's go to the rink. I have some suggestions for your choreographic sequence to knock your TES up a little more—" Victor starts, as if he's just realized something; his face falls to something more contemplative, and he holds out his hand to Yuri. "I mean…if you want."

Yuri stares at Victor's hand. He thinks about declining it.

 _Did you want to compete against me, Yurio?_ Yes. Fucking duh. There's no point in beating Victor Nikiforov if he isn't even in the picture.

 _What did you want me to be to you?_ A competitor. That's what Yuri wants.

 _My competitive career is over_. Nope. Not true. Yuri makes a decision. _I can keep Victor skating through the rest of this season. I can make him see that he can come back. I can be so good that he'll have to return to defend his title, and then I'll beat him for real. This isn't over._

Yuri reaches out, and Victor pulls him to his feet.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Don’t Save Me, by HAIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dtIjyG9gTg)_      **Just Now  
** “Never thought that I would grow so old of seeing the gold  
Still I never want it to go  
I would hold it up to my cold heart  
Feel the way it used to start up  
  
Take me back, take, take  
Take me back to the way that I was before  
Hungry for what was to come  
Now I'm longing for the way I was.”

 

When he wakes up late the morning after the party, Yuuri doesn't get up right away. He lies in bed, staring at the ceiling, hands running absently up and down his bedsheets as if to trace the outline of where Victor had lain. He lets the waves of emotion wash gently over him.

 _Victor Victor Victor._ There was once a time when the name conjured a tense feeling of anticipation and anxiety, of denial and forbidden heartache. Now Yuuri drops those hasty and ineffective walls, and the freedom is dizzying.

Yawning lazily, Yuuri tucks one hand beneath his head and scrolls back through Victor’s account, a now-familiar ritual where the photos and lyric posts blur together into abstract shapes as he whips past them. Back and back and back, all the way to the first lyric post Victor sent to Yuuri, to—

 _Oh._ Yuuri’s scrolled back farther than usual, and he blinks as the screen stops on a grid of photos from a fancy party, clearly at a hotel. Victor is flashing his dazzling celebrity smile and jokingly wearing a piece of tinsel like a scarf. A Christmas or New Year’s Eve celebration, Yuuri guesses. Maybe it’s Victor’s birthday party.

He goes to scroll up to more familiar territory, but something stops him. Yuuri has done his fair share of Victor Nikiforov Instagram stalking, but he’d avoided social media entirely in the months immediately after the Sochi Grand Prix, too ashamed to engage with the public or even look at any other skaters. The Lyric Post feature was introduced last November; as with many things (smartphones, e-readers, social media itself), Yuuri was late to the party. Victor, however, comes a close second to Phichit when it comes to social media savviness.

In an instant, Yuuri is overcome with a perverse need to know what kind of lyrics Victor may have posted before their conversation began.

He starts scrolling back again, biting his bottom lip in anticipation, but he sees nothing but photos. Image after image, selfies and landscapes and dogs and practice videos. Yuuri scrolls back quickly to some photographs from late summer—too far back—and then reverses, going a little slower, trying to ignore the flashes of intense blue eyes and white teeth as they pass by. He hits the Grand Prix from last year; photos from the first and second rounds of competition, of Victor’s impeccably composed charmed life, and it’s only due to his slower pace that Yuuri notices the single lyric post, sandwiched between selfies of Victor in a very familiar green suit.

Yuuri’s heart seizes up and for a solid two seconds he feels like he’s falling through an infinite void.

He taps the post, brings up the song, and hits Play.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Ultraviolet, by the Katherines](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxrkol2rXxM)_      **335d ago  
** “Met your eyes through the haze in the atmosphere  
Like rays of light beckoning through the dark  
By my side whisper things that I want to hear  
Effortless, witty words, quick remarks  
  
Pull me in like gravity  
Want to keep you close to me  
Such a rush, this urgency  
Need to say before you leave  
  
Doesn't matter that you and I just met  
I'm not ready to let you go just yet  
You hit me like you're ultra violet  
And I'm hoping you'll take me with you…”  


He’s surprised by the tears that blur the words on his screen, and he closes his eyes.

 

_The Grand Prix banquet is a dazzling overload of reflections, from the diamonds winking in the women’s earlobes and the tie clips sitting right on top of the men’s hearts to the polished champagne flutes, as delicate as spun sugar. And yet while the room should be overwhelming, or at least exhilarating, Victor’s view is tarnished and dull. Sometimes he wonders what other people see that he doesn’t._

_Tonight Victor has picked a dark emerald suit with a royal blue tie; it’s an unusual combination, but one which sets off the multifaceted hues in his eyes. He stands straight, light on his feet like a dancer, silver-blonde hair mussed to exactly the right consistency, practiced smile already playing at his lips; Victor is the ideal assembly of athletic champion and eligible bachelor. He is perfect._

_He takes another small sip of champagne, glancing around the lavish hotel ballroom. His gold medal is up in the hotel room, but it doesn’t really matter; it’s there in spirit, because he can feel the weight of the metal on his chest, the ribbon cutting into the back of his neck like a noose._

That’s not the right word, _Victor chides himself, but he loses the train of thought as he locks eyes with Christophe Giacometti, who flirtatiously winks at him. Victor returns the gesture, albeit with less flair, and wonders if this will end in Chris’ hotel room or his own. Wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last._

_Thoughts of Chris’ long eyelashes are rudely interrupted by a screeching yelp across the room, in a tenor that could only belong to Yuri Plisetsky. Intrigued, Victor joins a few other skaters and hangers-on as they approach the dance floor, where the Russian Punk has been roped into what appears to be a dance contest of some kind. Victor chuckles, taking a soupçon of pleasure at the thought of Yuri’s pain, but the sound dies in his throat when he realizes exactly who Yuri is dancing with: it’s the Japanese Senior Men’s skater, Yuuri Katsuki._

_Blink._

_He doesn’t instruct himself to get closer, and yet he finds himself moving, pulled into orbit around this fascinating source of gravity. As he watches Yuri Plisetsky get trounced in the dance-off, Victor combs desperately through his memories of the competition to picture what Japanese Yuuri looked like on the ice, but he comes up short; he’ll have to look up some YouTube videos later. Right now, though, Yuuri is moving with confidence and fluidity, a determined smirk on his lips. He does some kind of modified backflip and something bright flashes across Victor’s field of vision, too quick for him to follow._

_Blink. Yuri leaves the dance floor, scowling and bright red in the face, but Yuuri Katsuki stands, swaying slightly, and Victor realizes with shock that the guy is_ ridiculously _drunk. Yuuri scans the crowd, eyes narrowed in thought, and his outstretched hand stops with an index finger pointing directly at Victor._

_His heart is racing. Why is his heart racing?_

_Yuuri makes a beckoning motion, one eyebrow cocked._ Come hither, _he seems to say._ Bring it on. Show me what you’ve got.

_Victor has no choice but to follow, and as he does he notes that the lights are starting to hurt his eyes a little._

_Blink. Victor has no idea what to expect, considering the fact that Yuuri’s so sloshed, but he’s_ amazing _; he dances as though he’s creating music instead of just moving to it. As they get closer and closer together, the playfulness in Yuuri’s eyes sparks something giddy in Victor, and he chases the feeling without a second thought. Yuuri wraps his arms around Victor’s neck; Victor’s hand brushes Yuuri’s waist and his fingers twitch back when he feels the taut muscles underneath._

_Blink. At some point Victor realizes that he’s probably losing this dance-off, but then Yuuri dips him back and Victor hears himself laughing and he’s never felt so light or genuine or free._

_Blink. Yuuri, now pantsless and wearing his incredibly ugly tie as a headband, throws his arms around Victor, crushing him in a sloppy embrace, and Victor freezes. He can’t remember the last time someone hugged him._

“ _After this season ends, my family runs a hot spring resort, so please come,” Yuuri slurs, the words rolling so easily off his tongue, and it’s as if Victor’s a friend. As if he’s a person Yuuri wants to spend time with, to introduce to his parents, to just know for who he is._

_In that moment Victor wants to kiss Yuuri more than he’s ever wanted to kiss anyone._

_Yuuri’s hair is so beautiful, almost blue-black; the redness on his cheeks is a painter’s brushstroke, delicate across his radiant skin, and when he looks up his eyes glimmer with such brightness that it almost hurts to look at him._

“ _If I win this dance-off… You’ll become my coach right?”_

_Victor stops breathing, and Yuuri flings himself back into the hug._

“ _Be my coach, Victor!_ _”_

_He blinks, and the world explodes into colour._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Still Falling For You, by Ellie Goulding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUah0gSkW2g)     _ **10m ago  
** “It took us a while  
'Cause we were young and unsure  
With love on the line  
What if we both would need more?  
But all your flaws and scars are mine  
Still falling for you  
Still falling for you  
Still falling for you  
  
And just like that, all I breathe, all I feel  
You are all for me; I'm in  
And just like that, all I breathe, all I feel  
You are all for me  
No one can lift me, catch me the way that you do  
I'm still falling for you."

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[If My Heart Was a House, by Owl City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWxOIdwyY8M)    _ **Just Now  
** “I walk slowly when I'm on my own  
Do you feel alive?  
Yeah, but frankly I still feel alone  
Oh, but you'll survive  
So I may as well ditch my dismay  
Bombs away... Bombs away...  
  
Circle me and the needle moves gracefully  
Back and forth, if my heart was a compass you'd be North  
Risk it all cause I'll catch you if you fall  
Wherever you go, if my heart was a house you'd be home”

 

**(Two days later)**

Yuuri keeps expecting Yakov to watch him like a hawk, but he doesn’t. Yakov leaves the rink promptly at five-thirty, something that’s apparently been a habit for years, justified by his argument that young people become completely useless in the last part of any given workday—and he isn’t necessarily wrong, but it allows Team Russia to finish up choreography, cool down, and generally goof around for a few hours before dinner.

Yuuri keeps expecting Yurio to be possessive of Victor, to demand his attention entirely and completely, but he doesn’t. Victor has been far more assertive and happy at the rink in the past few days, actually getting on the ice to demonstrate techniques and work through his pupil’s choreography, and Yurio doesn’t actually seem to mind. He still glowers off at around six, stomach audibly grumbling, leaving the older skaters to chuckle at the fond (read: horrifying) memories of their own adolescence.

Yuuri keeps expecting to have to actively avoid looking at Victor on the ice, but thanks to Victor’s new participatory approach, Yakov has turned the entirety of his attention back to Yuuri, and has become, if possible, even _more_ demanding. Yuuri works so hard that he sometimes completely forgets about Victor even if he’s only a few feet away. The two Yuris and their coaches even break for lunch at different times, taking advantage of the increased room on the ice to do full run-throughs of routines. While he wolfs down his sandwich in the cramped arena kitchen, Yuuri checks his Instagram:

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Everywhere, by Fleetwood Mac](https://youtu.be/miwHh9X9sCc?t=34s)     _ **51m ago  
** “Can you hear me calling out your name?  
You know that I’m falling and I don’t know what to say  
I’ll speak a little louder, I’ll even shout  
You know that I’m proud and I can’t get the words out  
Oh I, I...I want to be with you everywhere  
Oh I, I...I want to be with you everywhere”

 

Yuuri chews slowly, trying to keep the ridiculous grin off of his face.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Ultralife, by Oh Wonder](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQqDaZ9pkzY)_      **Just Now**  
“Lovesick the beat inside my head  
Waves struck a sea of bitterness  
Lights out solo in the blue  
Before I found you  
  
Days passed slowly, lost and low  
You gave me hope and now there’s only  
  
Blood running in my veins  
I’ve never been here before  
And I got love falling like the rain  
I never could’ve asked for more  
I got so much soul inside my bones  
Take a look at me now  
I’m young forever in the sun  
Ever since you came I’m living ultralife”

 

Yuuri keeps expecting Georgi or Mila to step in to babysit, but they don’t. Georgi appears to have no interests other than Anya, the Russian Nationals, and obscenely terrible music. Mila, on the other hand, is quickly proving herself to be the Female Russian Phichit, a combination that Yuuri genuinely didn’t think was scientifically possible, but it’s all right there in front of him: the endless cheerfulness, the unexpectedly sassy sense of humour, and the oddly specific willingness to coincidentally leave Yuuri alone in close quarters with stunningly beautiful men who make him tongue-tied.

Yuuri and Victor are both adults, after all. And as much as Yuuri himself still feels scandalized by the events which lead to the Onsen on Ice, never mind everything that’s happened since the Cup of China, it seems that most of the rest of the world has moved on.

This is all to say that Yuuri finds it’s suddenly almost seven o’clock in the evening, and he’s one of the very last figure skaters on the ice. He’s confining himself to one half of the rink, giving the ice dancers plenty of room to do their routines; he has earbuds in his ears, and he’s listening to the folk song again. He knows it’s a terrible idea to confuse his muscle memory by trying to apply the choreography of the March to this other song, but he can’t help it; it’s actually _fun_ to skate to it, unlike the Tchaikovsky piece. It feels emotionally familiar, cozy like a favourite sweater, as casual as a conversation.

Yuuri lets his eyes drift out of focus, transforming his surroundings from the terrifying reality of St. Petersburg into the fuzzy comfort of just another arena, just another ice rink, just another day.

He sees a silvery blur that could only be Victor’s hair, and has to turn his face away to hide his smile. He starts the piece over from scratch, letting the thudding drum lead him wherever his skates desire, into a marked quad-double toe loop combination—nothing fancy, because it’s the end of the day, after all. He does a salchow next, then a perfect raised-arm triple loop, beaming as the air swooshes past his exposed wrist. He feels so beautiful.

Yuuri can’t see properly, but it doesn’t matter; his body largely knows what to do, even as he dials himself back by half to confine his skating to one part of the rink. He skips most of the spins, marking them only enough to get through the music, but takes time with his Ina Bauer, imagining his limbs stretching infinitely long. Another marked jump, rationing energy even as the last part of the choreography picks up in speed, lost in the beautiful fantasy of the song as it fills his ears. Yuuri does a triple axel, segueing into a step sequence which becomes faster and faster, before the final jump. This one he’s going to do full-out; no marking, no hesitation, no mistakes, just that eternal and instant sensation of taking flight.

As he turns in preparation, imagining Victor’s gaze from afar, Yuuri breaks out into a wide grin. His toe pick strikes the ice.

 

It’s not the first time he’s landed a quad flip, but it’s been a while—not since before the Cup of China, and that feels like an entire lifetime ago. _Not too bad, all things considered_ , Yuuri thinks to himself, stashing his workout gloves into his locker. The accomplishment has made him giddy, enough that he’s only feeling a little bit wounded about the fact that when he got off the ice after the quad flip Victor was nowhere to be found. It’s possible he’s gone home already; it’s probably past Makkachin’s dinner time.

 _Which reminds me, I should ask about hanging out with Makkachin_ , Yuuri muses. He’s missed having a dog, and now—well, now he’s got access to one again. In theory.

He finishes packing things up, enacting his daily ritual of wiggling his toes inside his boots to reacquaint his feet with the idea of actually making full contact with the floor. When Yuuri slams his locker door closed—

“Holy _fuck_ ,” he jumps at the sudden sight of Victor Nikiforov, world champion and apparent ninja, who snuck up directly behind the open door of the locker. “How long have you been standing there?”

Victor has an incredibly dark and dangerous look in his eyes, a look that Yuuri’s seen only one time before: in Beijing. He opens his mouth to ask the question again, but Victor grabs his wrist and takes off at a rapid pace, dragging Yuuri along with him.

“Victor? What the hell? Is—” Yuuri gulps. _Is he mad?_ He starts combing through the events of the day to try and discern what he possibly could have done to piss Victor off, and all he can come up with is— _no, that’s insane, Victor doesn’t have a patent on a quad flip. Plus, he didn’t even see i—_

Yuuri has no time to finish that thought, because Victor suddenly stops and yanks open an unmarked door, barreling inside and pulling Yuuri in after him. Yuuri registers a shelf full of towels and a rack of hockey sticks before the door clicks shut, plunging them into darkness. He doesn’t even get a chance to open his mouth to ask what the fuck is going on before Victor slams into him, kissing desperately, hotly, hungrily. Yuuri moans, dropping his gym bag to the floor, and Victor steps forward, grinding against him, and putting both hands on the wall on either side of Yuuri’s head as they part for air.

Yuuri cocks an eyebrow. “You really enjoy shoving me up against walls, don’t you?”

His eyes have adjusted to the gloom enough that he can see the flash of Victor’s white teeth when he grins. “I enjoy,” he growls, “seeing the hottest skater on earth do a quadruple flip right in front of me as if it were nothing.”

Yuuri nearly melts into a puddle of workout clothes and incomprehensible squeeing. He goes to reply with something incredibly romantic, but instead he retorts, “Oh really? That’s cool, where is he?” _Why am I_ like _this?_

Victor chuckles exactly once and surges forward again, and Yuuri relaxes into the kiss, twining his arms around Victor’s neck and checking off three things on his mental bucket list in one swift go: landing a quad flip in front of Victor Nikiforov, making out with Victor Nikiforov, and making out in an ice rink _without_ getting awkwardly caught by Celestino.

Victor is charmingly aggressive, all teeth and little growling breaths and grinding without a single bit of shame. “You,” he murmurs as he nips at Yuuri’s ear, “are going to drive me _insane_.”

“ _Drive_ you?” Yuuri asks innocently, because a trickster god cursed him in a previous life to be ridiculously sassy but only when alone with his childhood idol.

And then Victor grins like Yuuri’s the most delicious thing he’s ever seen and drops to his knees.

Yuuri gapes. “Victor, what are you—” the question is sharply interrupted by a moan as Victor reaches into his pants, pulling them down just enough to free his cock. Between the darkness around them and the Victor-Related Sex Thoughts klaxon bells going off in his head, Yuuri can’t be sure but he swears he sees Victor actually lick his lips like a cartoon character before sucking Yuuri into his mouth.

Yuuri’s eyes roll back in his head. “V-Victor,” he pants. “What are you— _oh god_ —d-doing?”

Victor pulls off him with a quiet pop of his cheeks. “Mmm, I could say I’m rewarding you for skating so beautifully,” he coos, “but truthfully I just can’t help myself.”

 _This isn’t real,_ Yuuri thinks. _I failed that quad flip and landed on my head and now I’m having a coma dream._

Victor’s tongue flicks out to lick a drop of pre-come, and Yuuri shivers all over. “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Victor grins, “it’s rude to talk with one’s mouth full.”

Yuuri gasps as Victor swallows him again, fingers twisting into Victor’s impossibly soft hair and gripping hard enough that he’s sure he rips some out. When Victor lets Yuuri’s cock slide down his throat, Yuuri’s knees buckle, and he presses his other hand flat against the wall in a desperate attempt to stay upright.

“Victor, I’m—fuck, _fuck_ , if you don’t stop I’m going to come—”

“—good,” Victor growls before diving back down, picking up his speed and intensity, making tiny little moaning noises which reverberate through his lips, fingers of one hand digging into the flesh of Yuuri’s bare hip hard enough to leave marks. Yuuri covers his mouth with both hands as he comes, trying in vain to quiet his moans in the moment when he discovers that Victor Nikiforov does, in fact, swallow.

So that’s four things checked off the bucket list.

 

As they walk towards the athlete exit, fingers just barely not touching, they pass a set of picture windows along the hallway. Victor’s pace slows, and he actually grabs Yuuri’s hand and gives it a squeeze as he looks up at the windows wistfully.

“Victor? What’s up?”

Victor smiles, and it’s like the sun shining. “Nothing,” he replies, eyes twinkling. “Just…that’s where I listened to ‘I Want You.’ Right there, leaning against that window.”

Yuuri squeezes his hand back. He has no idea what to say, but he opens his dumb mouth anyway: “I, um, I skated to ‘Yo Hello Hooray’ for twenty straight minutes after you sent ‘Rage and Romance’ to me.”

Victor’s eyes are so huge Yuuri wonders if he could jump into them like a lake. “Really?”

He nods. “Yeah. I was…” his cheeks hurt from grinning. “Fuck, that was just a really good day?”

Victor glances back down the hallway to ensure they’re alone, and then he leans in to press his forehead against Yuuri’s, a little playful nudge. “I’m glad,” he murmurs. “Someday I hope I can top it.”

Yuuri pulls back, eyebrow raised high. “Victor.”

It should be illegal for Victor Nikiforov, five-time world champion, to look this aggressively innocent. “What?”

“You just blew me in a supply closet.”

“Well that’s just standard,” Victor scoffs, walking towards the door. “I don’t know how _you_ have secret affairs in Japan, Yuuri, but here in Glorious Mother Russia we—”

Yuuri yanks him into the door alcove and kisses him.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Person You’d Be Proud Of, by Cataldo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvrL-_IyhC4)    _ **4m ago  
** “There are days I feel so lucky all I can think of is you dying  
‘cuz I’m worried that life owes me one.  
But the arbitrary happenstance of tragedy is tragic.  
So the more that these days wear on the more lucky I become.  
  
Yeah that’s why you’re the voice in my mind (though it’s inevitably crowded)  
and I’ll try to be the type of person you’d be proud of.”

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Give Me Strength, by Snow Patrol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEsIdT8nkY0)    _ **1m ago  
** “You give the strength to me, a strength I never had,  
I was a mess you see, I'd lost the plot so bad,  
You dragged me up and out, out of the darkest place,  
There's not a single doubt when I can see your face…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri)  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me) and [Chapter 16](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/164344256147/saniika-setting-sun-chap16-iwritevictuuri)  
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right) and also drew [two scenes from Chapter 12](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/163014630514/i-had-done-this-a-while-back-but-just-finished-it).  
> \- shemakesmeforget made a lovely [mood board](https://shemakesmeforget.tumblr.com/post/161818989903/setting-sun-by-iwritevictuuri-fic-rec) <3  
> \- fellow writing pal Nenya made a [book/album cover](http://paledreamsblackmoths.tumblr.com/post/163851009780/i-its-petty-but-when-youve-run-out-of-fucks-to) that is so effin' cool
> 
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aWfb9-Ls_4&index=100&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)


	17. Lying With You Half Awake, Stumbling Over What to Say

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, readers. Thank you so, so, so much for your patience, again. I started my final semester of graduate school a month ago and even though I'm only doing two classes, my research project has completely consumed my whole life; I am overjoyed that I was able to finish this chapter for you, because it came together in a _stunning_ fashion if I do say so myself, but it will definitely be another handful of weeks until the next update, simply because of school. 
> 
> With that said, I do want to thank FullMetalChords for stepping in to beta last-minute and helping me transform this chapter from pretty good to HOLY CRAPBALLS THE FEELINGS good, which is the level I strive for. I hope you enjoy, and if you do, please consider leaving a comment and telling your friends. As I slog through readings and apply for research ethics approval, it means so goddamn much to see your reactions and responses to this fic that I love. You're all amazing <3 
> 
> Follow along with the whole soundtrack:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)

Yuuri Katsuki sits in the locker room of the St. Petersburg arena, heart pounding with anxiety, drowning in deja vu. Today isn't anything particularly special, except that he and Yuri Plisetsky will be doing their free skate routines one after the other, with Yakov and Lilia acting as judges and assigning mock ISU scores. Everyone is flying out to Moscow the day after tomorrow for the Rostelecom Cup; this is the dress rehearsal before the big show.

So, really, no big deal, except it's kind of the biggest deal possible. It's fucking ridiculous. He never should have agreed to it.

Yuuri runs a hand through his hair and smirks. _As if I had a choice in the matter._

But do things have to repeat themselves so pointedly? Does he have to feel like he’s back where he began, as if this whole year has been a ridiculously awful amazing dream, as if he’s about to spend eternity in a time loop with no resolution?

If it was, and if he could go back and win the Hot Springs on Ice, what would this year have been like?

Yuuri looks over at his phone, sitting on the bench beside him. He goes to reach for it, but a flashback of shame and embarrassment surges through him and he yanks his hand back at the last second.

All performers are superstitious, including figure skaters.

Another heartbeat, another few breaths, and the world hasn't collapsed. Yuuri blinks away the remnants of his anxiety spike as Mila pokes her head around the door of the locker room.

“Yuuri, what's with the holdup?”

He looks up at her. “Oh. Hi. Sorry.”

She grins. "This is seriously no big deal, it's standard for Team Russia. It's just to get a good idea about your likely score at Rostelecom; no major changes to the routine or anything."

Yuuri feels cold all over, but he forces his mouth open. "Yeah."

"But," Mila winks, "just between us, I'm wishing you luck. You ready?"

He closes his eyes, and then opens them.

"Yes."

Yuuri follows her out to the rink, where a table has been set up roughly in the area where judges would normally be sitting in a competition scenario: there’s Lilia, sitting ramrod straight, her posture a constant reminder that everyone else is a bunch of slouching peons; Yakov sits next to her, scowling under the brim of his hat. And then—

_Oh. Well. Fuck._

Sitting beside Yakov is Victor Nikiforov, holding a pen and a notepad and considering the ice with a professional frown, the very picture of a highly polished judge.

The shape of Victor begins to swirl as Yuuri’s anxiety crawls up his throat and wraps itself around his eyeballs.

 _I can do this,_ he tells himself, hiding his hands behind his back. _It’s no big deal. The stakes are low._

That’s a hilariously blatant lie. For Yuuri, the stakes are never low.

"Katsuki Yuuri, you're going first," Lilia snaps, and Yuuri starts at hearing his name in her clipped, precise English.

"O-okay," he nods, shrugging off his warmup jacket and skate guards and stepping out onto the ice. He skates to the middle of the rink, right in front of where Yakov, Lilia, and Victor sit, and as he takes his starting pose Yuuri makes direct eye contact with Victor and a surge of energy zaps through his limbs.

 _Skate for Victor_ , he tells himself as the Slavonich March begins to thud through the loudspeakers. _Okay. Here we go._

In the weeks since the Cup of China, Yuuri and Yakov have worked to refine the free skate's technical elements; his base score almost, but not quite, matches Stammi Vicino. This alone would be enough to make Yuuri a combination of terrified and excited— _terrifited? Excified? Damn it, Yuuri, focus—_

Quad-double combination. Once a terror, now no problem.

Yuuri tries to sink into the music, but all he can think is how Victor would never skate to something so pedestrian and standard. _Everyone_ does Tchaikovsky.

 _Victor Victor Victor._ That's the thing; he's sitting a mere ten feet away, watching with rapt attention. This time, unlike during the Hot Springs on Ice tournament, Yuuri finds the idea energizing; he’s always fantasized about Victor watching him skate. He’s spent his whole life refining his art, hoping to be so beautiful that he renders Victor speechless, swooning, instantly in love. A shiver runs down Yuuri’s spine: _watch me, Victor._

He does a triple axel, followed closely by a triple flip, wobbling only slightly on the landing.

_Watch me, Victor._

As he sweeps around the far end of the rink, graceful as a swan, Yuuri realizes that the March is actually pretty fun if he's performing for the right person. He's never wanted to perform for anyone else.

_Victor Victor Victor._

As he does his Ina Bauer, Yuuri lets his eyes slide out of focus, and tries to feel beautiful. _Watch me, Victor_ , he thinks. _Watch me. Ache for me. Devour me. Want me. Love me._

At that exact moment, the March picks up to a militaristic upbeat tempo—not exactly the most romantic thing in the world. Yuuri expels a tiny huff of frustration as he prepares for his final few moves; he does his last combination jump with a flair, raising his arm during his triple salchow, but he barely notices the whistles and claps coming from the spectating members of Team Russia. There’s something else on his mind.

_Quad flip. Quad flip. Quad flip to finish this free skate. Quad flip in front of Victor._

Last time he did that, things escalated to the point of blowjobs in supply closets, and as a result Yuuri can't walk down that hallway without feeling his cheeks get hot. And now he's thinking about Victor's tongue and lips and he has to focus and Yakov and Lilia are _right there_ —

He does a quad toe loop. Tightly rotated, solidly landed, an accomplished finale to an impressive and technically demanding skate. It's fine.

He hates it.

As Yuuri finishes his last combination spin, he plasters a look of triumphant confidence on his face, finishing the routine with one fist raised high in the air. The music dies, leaving behind a faint echo, and Yuuri can hear polite applause from the fuzzy human-shaped blobs at the judge's table. He skates closer.

"Here is your score,” Lilia says sharply. She hands Yuuri a pink card.

Yuuri frowns, squinting at her compact handwriting. He can see the final tallied score at the bottom, which is nice and high—a few points higher than he got at the Cup of China, no doubt due to the successful jumps—but the PCS is…not great.

It’s not bad, not enough that she has commented. But it’s not great, and it stings to look at it and realize that he’s now performed this free skate three times, and his PCS has only improved by two points overall.

_What’s the old adage? Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is a trend._

Yuuri looks back up; Yakov is sitting back, looking smug and satisfied, and Victor has his hands folded neatly on the table, his expression unreadable.

“Any other remarks?” he asks politely. Victor leans forward just a little, and Yuuri’s heart leaps into his throat.

“What happened to the quad flip?” Victor asks, so formally that Yuuri has to bite the inside of his lip to keep from dissolving into giggles. “You were able to land it a few days ago. What was different now?”

Yuuri opens his mouth, but then snaps it shut. _A few days ago I was using a song I shouldn’t be listening to,_ he nearly blurted. _I was choreographing something else for no goddamn reason, wasting my time and confusing my muscle memory. NBD, just another day for Katsuki Yuuri, Human Disaster._

He takes a breath. “I’m aiming for consistency,” he replies, and he doesn’t miss the way Yakov sits up a little straighter when he says it. “If I don’t think I can land the flip, I won’t go for it.”

Victor narrows his eyes. “You should always strive for the greatest outcome, Yuuri,” he says cooly, as if the last time Yuuri landed a quad flip didn’t end with Victor on his knees in a supply closet a few yards away from where they’re sitting right now.

“N-noted,” Yuuri gulps, overcome by the sudden desire to be in a place where his lap area is not plainly visible. Luckily it’s Yurio’s turn, so Yuuri can scuttle off to sit on the sidelines, just off to the side and behind the judges’ table. He puts on his glasses and tries to warm his frozen fingers as Yurio takes the ice and strikes his opening pose.

[The Adagio](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQXVzg2PiZw) starts slowly, painfully, each note landing with a mournful heaviness like a funeral dirge. Yurio’s movements match both the pace and the intensity; he moves through a choreographic sequence and does his first jump combo at a point where the strings drop out of the melody, and his body almost bubbles with barely contained energy. Yuuri watches as Yurio does a triple salchow followed immediately by a triple toe loop, his limbs flowing like water, his bones so light that it seems as if he hovers in midair with each jump.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri can’t help but try to see Victor's expression. He’s watching his pupil with intense focus, tapping his pen absently against his lips, nodding as Yurio does his quad salchow; when the ice _cracks_ with a successfully landed lutz, a slow triumphant smile crawls across Victor’s face, and contrasted with the sadness of the music it’s somehow deeply unsettling for a reason Yuuri can’t quite identify.

This routine is demanding, somehow both heavy and delicate at the same time. Yuuri drags his gaze back to Yurio’s performance and tries to watch for areas where he could improve his own skating, but the music bowls him over; he hasn’t seen _Sunshine_ in a very long time, and he lets himself be swept up in each moment and get lost in the story Yurio is telling. Before he knows it the piece is coming to an end; the Adagio fades away, and Yurio stops spinning, finishing his routine with both hands folded over his heart.

Yuuri’s chest aches, and he realizes he stopped breathing.

It’s one of the most beautiful pieces of choreography he’s ever seen, and paired with the music it becomes all the more devastating. Yurio skated the story of someone who was sacrificing everything—joy, sorrow, life itself—for a cause that had no guaranteed payoff. It was lonely and apocalyptic, a long walk at the very end of the world. It was Victor’s routine through and through, stretched over Yurio’s long limbs and effortless skill, combining to make a terrifying force to be reckoned with. It’s probably a better routine than Yuuri’s; it’s definitely more emotional.

_Fuck._

Yurio skates over to the table, and receives his score card from Lilia with a triumphant glint in his eye. He leans on the rink barrier, reading it over, and with his glasses on Yuuri can _just_ strain to see a bit of the score; it’s higher than his own by a few points, likely due to the PCS.

Yuuri steels himself to descend into a spiral of anxiety and doubt, but then something catches his eye that makes him freeze in his tracks. It’s Victor, turning to Yakov with a steely glint in his eye and a tiny satisfied smirk across his lips.

“So, Yakov,” he says, voice dripping with pride, “tell me. Are we still in _jeopardy_?”

Yurio’s jaw drops; Yuuri feels the blood drain from his face. And before Yakov has time to formulate a response, Victor stands up from his seat, nods once to Lilia, and strolls away without a second glance.

“What the hell was that?” Yuuri asks before he can stop himself.

Yurio is watching Victor’s retreating back with a look that can only be described as _triumphant_ , and it’s so bizarrely genuine that it makes him look like a demented puppet.

“That, little piggy,” he answers, “is my coach.”

~

That night, Yuuri finds Yurio sitting on the low retaining wall in front of the dorm building, watching the gently falling snow.

“May I sit?”

Yurio responds with a shrug. It’s as close to a yes as Yuuri’s probably going to get, so he takes the opportunity, brushing some powder away from the concrete before settling down. Despite the proximity to the rink, the dormitory is actually on a very quiet street; Yuuri can see the haze from the massive streetlights which line the main road a few blocks away, looming like a faintly growing curtain just out of immediate reach.

“Your free skate was beautiful, Yurio,” Yuuri says.

Yurio scowls at the nickname. “It better be,” he grumbles. “It’s going to lead me to a gold medal.”

Yuuri lets himself smile at that, but says nothing. They sit in silence, watching the snow fall, before the need to speak becomes overwhelming.

“I realized how long it’s been since I saw _Sunshine_. It’s a really good film,” is what he comes up with, and it’s ridiculously clunky, but Yuri takes the bait.

“I don’t get it,” Yuri spits. “It didn’t make any sense.”

“Really? Why do you say that?”

Yuri blows his bangs out of his eyes. “It’s just depressing and the third act comes out of nowhere.”

A tiny smile plays across Yuuri’s lips. “I’ve lost hours arguing about that ending, so I won’t go there. But, third act buildup or not, you can’t deny that the selflessness and sacrifice is quite beautiful. That’s what you’re skating about, right?”

Yurio sighs. “Victor kept trying to lecture me about sacrifice all year, and I finally let him think I got it so he’d shut up,” he replies. “If you start in on this I swear I’ll jump off the roof of the dorm.”

Yuuri ignores the second part in favour of hyperfocusing on the first. “Victor’s sacrificed a lot this year,” he says, keeping his voice even. “He gave up competitive skating. He doesn’t kn—maybe he doesn’t know if he can return.”

Yurio scoffs. “Oh, he’ll be back,” he replies smugly.

Yuuri tugs at his scarf. “H-he will?”

“Of course he will. Or at least he’s going to _try_ , god knows if he’ll manage without breaking something. But Victor will compete again. I’ll make sure of it.” Yurio says it with all the bravado and confidence that only a fifteen-year-old can muster.

Yuuri pulls at his scarf again, until he finally just unwinds it and balls it up in his lap. “Anyway. I just—I wanted to congratulate you on how well you’ve interpreted that idea. If I were in your position I don’t know if I’d have the ability to go to that place. Sacrifice is so personal.”

“Oh, come _on,_ ” Yurio rolls his eyes. “As if you’ve made such _huge_ sacrifices in life, katsudon? Please. You have a family that loves you and a place to call home. You’ve gone to college. You’ve managed to scramble your way back into the GP this year despite the fact that you burned out at Sochi. You’re golden. Don’t tell me you’re a martyr.”

Yuuri closes his eyes. A thought floats to the top of his mind, and he interlaces his fingers together in his lap, curling them gently around the scarf.

“I never got to say goodbye to my dog,” he says softly. Saying it out loud for the first time, Yuuri feels a weight lift from his chest, and he sits up a little straighter. “I was away for five years, training, and I was so focused on getting to the Grand Prix finals that I didn’t even think about him. And then he died the day of my free skate at Sochi, and I wasn’t there. I sacrificed years of time with him and he died without knowing I still loved him, and it didn’t even pay off.”

Silence. Yuuri looks down at the small snowbank at his feet and feels a tear well up in one eye, hot and stinging. When he blinks, it drips down his face and away into the night, and his skin stings as the cold air hits the tear track on his cheek.

“That’s the thing, Yuri,” he continues. “Sacrifices aren’t…they’re never fun, but they’re also not _clean_. A lot of the time, the things we sacrifice are just gone before we even realize it, and the only way to keep going is to make that loss mean something. Otherwise you would just—” he swallows. “You would just stop.”

For some reason Yuuri thinks of Victor skating alone in a darkened ice rink.

“So?” comes the response. When Yuuri looks over, he sees Yurio staring resolutely at the ground, eyes soft and expression contemplative. He suddenly feels as though he’s intruding on something intimate, and looks away.

“So, the conscious decision to sacrifice something—to actually take something you have and let it go before you need to? That’s way more powerful. That’s what I’m trying to say. Most of the time, we don’t make sacrifices; our sacrifices make _us_.”

“Are you suggesting I kill my cat?” Yurio asks, and despite the snarky nature of the question his tone is softer than Yuuri’s ever heard it.

He sighs silently. “No, obviously. But—just, I don’t know, think. What’s the most selfless thing you could possibly do?”

To his credit, Yurio doesn’t recoil, roll his eyes, or dismiss the question. Instead he blinks slowly, gazing up at the snow, flakes landing on his hair like a net of fragile diamonds.

“I don’t know,” he finally says.

Yuuri’s phone buzzes in his pocket, and the sound zaps through the night and startles him, breaking the moment. Yurio flinches ever so slightly at the noise, and then folds his arms across his chest, his face back to wearing its usual sullen teenage scowl.

“I’m going to bed,” he says, hopping off the wall and disappearing into the building without so much as a wave or a nod goodbye. Once he’s gone, Yuuri pulls out his phone, breathing deep lungfuls of frigid air, as one statement echoes through his mind:

_Victor will compete again. I’ll make sure of it._

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[The Other Side, by Cataldo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3PbFlfurME)_      **3h ago  
** “There are years I can’t escape my mind.  
My body quits, I get the blues  
And fucking angry when love follows suit.  
And can’t see it's left me behind.  
  
But someday in a moment unacknowledged by the sprawl  
My heart will beat so hard that it can break  
The terra cotta shell the beast has made  
That keeps me lonesome and acting smart.  
So oh my my, I’ll meet you on the other side.”

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Dust to Dust, by The Civil Wars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJbmXvBJhCs)_      **Just Now  
** “All your acting, your thin disguise  
All your perfectly delivered lines  
They don't fool me  
You've been lonely too long”

~

Yuuri arrives at the rink for practice the next morning to find Yakov already waiting, cup of coffee in hand. Whether in Russia or Japan, every morning has been essentially the same.

“Warmup drills,” Yakov grunts, jerking his head towards the rink. “Now.”

Yuuri goes to obey, but he looks out across the ice and sees Yurio and Victor practicing some of the Agape short program. Before he can stop himself, he opens his big mouth.

"What happened yesterday? With, uh—”

Yakov follows his eye line across the rink, and snorts derisively into his coffee. "Vitya— _Victor_ , er, I believe the term is 'read me the riot act', if we're being polite about it."

 _Oh my god yes._ Yuuri sucks in a breath through his nostrils to calm the thrill that's leaping around in his chest. "Oh?"

"Yes," Yakov answers, eyebrow cocked high. "The details of which are not necessary for your practice today."

Fair enough, but Yuuri can't stop himself, brimming with pride for— _my boyfriend?_ _Lover? Fuck buddy? Lifelong idol?_ _What are we to each other?_ —for Victor.

Time for a slight subject change, but not a full one, if he can get away with it. “You’re not mad?”

Yakov actually puffs out his chest, and Yuuri swears there’s a glint of pride in his eye. “Mad? No. A little surprised, yes, but not mad. Victor Nikiforov has always been a showman, and this is just another example of that idiot doing the very last thing anyone would ever expect.”

Yuuri can barely bite back his grin. “He does seem to enjoy keeping people on their toes.”

“He’s a complete pain in the ass, but in the end I have only myself to blame,” Yakov shrugs. “I made him a figure skater and turned him into the overdramatic monster you see now.”

“What makes you say that?” Yuuri responds, ever so casually.

Yakov cackles, and it’s insane that just a few months ago the sound made Yuuri break out in a cold fear sweat. “Tell me, Katsuki, when did you learn English?”

“We start learning in fifth grade.”

“Young, then. Good. Then you know that English is a ridiculous language with many ridiculous rules, and we learn these rules and assume they are concrete—that if we follow those rules, then we will succeed in speaking the language. And this is true, to some degree, for all languages; over time, though, one discovers that the rules _can_ be broken, and that there are people who specialize in doing just that. The key is to know the rules so well that you can break them consciously, and use the opportunity to get your audience’s attention and to say something important. You can surprise them.”

Yuuri blinks. He’s never heard Yakov speak this many words in a row while sober. “Right,” he mumbles.

Yakov looks across the rink to where Victor is doing some footwork in front of a scowling Yuri. “Every one of my skaters—and this includes you, Katsuki—is pushed to become the best version of themselves possible. I know I’m strict; it’s the only way to make sure you don’t smack into the rink wall.”

Yuuri bites his lip to avoid wincing at the embarrassing memory. Yakov either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care, and Yuuri can guess which one it is.

“The technical elements—jumps, spins, footwork, everything—are a language,” Yakov continues. “They are words and phrases, and they can combine to form sentences and stories. But it is critical that you know the rules, because otherwise there’s no point in trying to put the elements together at all. Victor, more than anyone I've ever coached, has internalized the language of skating to the point where it's second nature. Thus he knows how to challenge it, and more importantly he understands why. That’s what makes him surprising, and that’s what makes him good at what he does.”

_You have to do the opposite of what people expect. How else will you surprise them?_

Yuuri smiles to himself. “Noted.”

“It doesn’t matter who it is, or what they’re doing; if you’re a performer, then the best possible thing you can do is to surprise every last damn person who’s watching you,” Yakov says. “And if you manage to surprise them, then you’ve won—no matter your score.”

Yuuri looks back across the rink as Victor does a triple lutz.

_What’s the most surprising thing Victor could do now?_

Victor moves into a few choreographic moves from Stammi Vicino on the fly, and they’re nothing less than perfect. Yakov is right; Victor, more than anyone else, skates as if it's his first language. He moves elegantly, effortlessly, evocatively. He is perfectly poised in a way that Yuuri, with his emotions worn raw on his skin, could never hope to be.

_What’s the most surprising thing Victor could do now?_

It’s amazing to think that the last time Yuuri saw Victor do this choreography, it was on a TV screen, last season, when Victor was still an unattainable god—

_No. Wait._

That’s incorrect; the last time Yuuri saw Victor do this choreography, it was in person, at midnight, a week and a half ago, when he watched Victor pour everything he had into what he loved and then completely break down, alone at the rink.

The mental compartment where Yuuri stored that memory cracks open, and he lets the shock waves wash over him like the tide. _How could I have forgotten about that night?_

His time in St. Petersburg has been such a whirlwind that each day has felt like a week in its own right. His head is full of every second he’s spent with Victor, committing them to memory in lush and gorgeous detail. He’s thought of almost nothing else; even the upcoming Rostelecom Cup and all of his preparations have taken a backseat to the overwhelming explosion of emotions related to _Victor, Victor, Victor._

What did he say the night of the party? _I’ve been unhappy for a really long time._

Victor isn't skating competitively, and it’s tearing him apart.

_Victor will compete again. I’ll make sure of it._

Yuuri’s eyes slide out of focus, turning Victor into a graceful blur, and he grips the edge of the rink barrier as the pieces click together in his mind.

_What’s the most surprising thing Victor could do now?_

Yuuri knows the answer.

_He’d return to skating._

Yuuri pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it, waiting for Instagram to refresh.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Wide Eyes, by The New Pornographers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nH2JA0peNjM)    _ **26m ago  
** "Overlooking the canyon,  
Right from where I'm standing, I swear I  
See my former glory still burning  
It had every intent of returning  
  
There's years to planning and landing  
To prepare for jumping the canyon  
It’s not the death-defying, or cheering,  
It’s the thrill of clearing, barely clearing  
  
And if you see no hope for me  
I still see hope for you  
In the high rise of the morning  
The exception that proves my rule…"

 

Sometimes interpreting a lyric requires creativity and logical leaps to interpret. _I swear I see my former glory still burning_ does not feel like one of those times.

_It had every intent of returning._

Yep. There that is. Yuuri absentmindedly chews on his lower lip.

Does Victor know what he's sending? Is he trying to subtly let Yuuri down easy, or is he completely unaware of what his subconscious is trying to convey? Yuuri isn't sure which option is better.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Kai’s Song, by Overcoats](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz2ZhN3Koss)_      **Just Now  
** “I’ve been feeling down, I’ve been feeling restless  
I’ve been feeling tired of this life  
You were made for me  
But will you wait for me?  
When the party’s over, will you take me home?  
  
How did I lose myself and everyone around me?  
But oh god, I have never felt alive like this…”

 

"Katsuki!" comes Yakov's bark in his ear. "Enough screens, it's time to drill that quad flip."

"Yes, coach," Yuuri replies dutifully, shrugging off his warmup jacket and tucking his phone inside one of the pockets. As he skates a few laps to re-warm his limbs, he keeps his eyes steadily and purposefully ahead, never turning to catch a glimpse of Victor even as he passes close by.

 _Victor Victor Victor_ , his heart pounds.

_For now. For now. For now._

~

As he eats his lunch, Yuuri scrolls back through Instagram. Even though they’re now in the same city, and often in the same building, he can’t shake the habit; there is now a very strong association between lunchtime at the rink and new lyric posts from Victor. Luckily, it seems that Victor has a similar sort of tic, because as Yuuri goes to put his plate in the sink, his phone buzzes with a new instant message.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Yakov’s going straight to the airport tomorrow and just told me in no uncertain terms that I should not be late because he will not be picking anyone up  
_ @v-nikiforov: _So would you want to come over for dinner tonight maybe? Makkachin has missed you._

 

Yuuri’s heart might just burst. The bit about Makkachin is such a blatant lie, but it’s so adorably sweet, almost as if Victor’s nervous that Yuuri would say no. He taps out a quick reply and hits Send.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _yes._

@v-nikiforov: _Oh! Okay! How about 7:30?_

@katsukiyuuri: _sounds good_

 

Dinner. At Victor’s apartment. Like an actual date night.

Yuuri has to lean against the scuffed Formica countertop, because his knees literally go weak at the sudden burst of emotion that hits him. He didn’t think it was possible to feel so ridiculously enamoured of another human being. It’s so intense it feels like he’s been dunked in cold water.

_I’m in love with Victor._

No, he’s not. He agreed to never say that word about Victor in that way. He _loved_ Victor’s skating, his hair, his eyes, his dog, and the way his collarbone curved so perfectly when he wore V-neck shirts. There is and always has been a difference between love and being _in_ love. It’s a barrier that keeps your heart intact, no matter how much it may hurt.

Yuuri refreshes Instagram, waiting for a direct message response, but instead he sees something much worse.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Get Loved, by the Fast Romantics](https://soundcloud.com/fastromantics/get-loved-1)    _ **2m ago  
** “I've had my fun, honey  
Skinny dipped in a lake of money  
Gettin' drunk with the easter bunny  
‘cause I wanted to  
But all I really want is you  
  
You know that I would give it all up for you  
All up for you, you know that I'd do it  
‘cause I wanna get loved  
Get loved, Get loved  
Get loved, Get loved”

 

It’s all upbeat Pacific Northwest indie rock, with a stomp-clap beat and an infectiously singable chorus, and it’s all just so much.

_I would give it all up for you._

A flash of memory: Victor lying on the rink barrier, one leg dangling over the ice, his shoulders shaking with sobs. Yuuri shakes his head so quickly that his earbuds fall out.

No. He can’t ask Victor to give up what he loves. Yuuri has many flaws but he’ll be damned if that sort of selfishness will be one of them.

If Victor returns to skating, what happens to Yuuri? Yakov probably won’t bother to keep him if Victor isn’t paying, and even if he wins the GPF Yuuri can’t afford even a fraction of Yakov’s coaching fees, never mind the fact that Russia basically never takes on foreign trainees, and he’s going to be 24 and is likely nearing the end of his career anyway, and even if he retires there’s no way he can stay in Russia just to be Victor Nikiforov’s arm candy, and—

—and no matter what, Yuuri is screwed.

_And I’m in love with Victor._

He can’t even bring himself to deny it. The barrier is gone.

Yuuri has spent the better part of his life admiring Victor, but this feels different than the adoration he's carried so long; it’s larger, more intricate, more emotional. Faster.

So fast.

Too fast.

Teetering on the brink of panic, almost.

Yuuri thinks of blue-green eyes glittering with joy and the way Victor moans Yuuri's name as he comes, and he gets the same rush that he does in the last moments before his worst emotional crashes. He closes his eyes to brace for impact, but it never comes; he just keeps feeling on edge, his heart fluttering, his stomach hovering somewhere in the vicinity of his toes.

This is new. This is incredible. This is awesome in the strictest sense—the old biblical definition where thrill begins to overlap to fear.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[The Beginning of the End, by Tired Pony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akyGG1Qgxhk)    _ **5m ago  
** “This is the coming of a new kind of love  
That breaks your heart for good  
It's the beginning of the end of your life  
But you would never know  
You are the answer to a question I asked  
In another life  
If it's the coming of a new kind of love  
Why am I terrified?”

 

Yuuri busies himself by carefully hand-washing each dish that’s been stacked in the cramped sink. He refills his water bottle and rolls his neck before turning back to where his phone sits on the counter, and as he makes his way back to the ice he checks Instagram one last time.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[EOS, by Rostam](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8GNEFd306A)_      **1m ago  
** “Everyone of us has felt the lights go down  
Everyone of us has felt our heart beat pound  
Everyone of us has felt it on our own  
Lo and behold you were here now you're gone  
Lo and behold you were here now you're gone  
  
Along the coast we could see time and space  
Out across the water it was all emptiness  
But I held you close, my cheek pressed up against yours  
And I could feel the hereafter out in front of us both…”

 

The song is ethereal and grandiose, with a haunted, elegant backing track of Latin hymns sung by a children's choir. Yuuri can't bring himself to parse the meaning of the lyric, or consider what Victor might really be trying to say. His heart teeters on the brink and he creates one more post before shoving his phone in his locker for the rest of the day.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[As Long As You’re Mine, by Stephen Schwartz](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MwpdjbMucI)_      **13s ago  
** “Kiss me too fiercely, hold me too tight  
I need help believing you're with me tonight  
My wildest dreamings could not foresee  
Lying beside you, with you wanting me  
  
And just for this moment, as long as you're mine  
I've lost all resistance  
And crossed some border line  
And if it turns out it's over too fast  
I'll make every last moment last  
As long as you're mine”

~

Victor Nikiforov’s apartment is just as gorgeous as he is. It’s meticulous and clean, but beautifully lit, and covered in more books than Yuuri thought possible. Victor orders delivery from a fancy French restaurant (“I should not try to cook for you,” he jokes), and has selected no fewer than three bottles of wine which pair with each course of the meal. Because of course he has.

Yuuri expects to feel nervous, to be terrified, to spend the entire night as one big ball of anxiety. In light of his revelations earlier today at the rink, he walks into the apartment brimming with certainty that he’ll be the most awkward motherfucker who ever lived. But as his first glass of wine turns into a second turns into a third, and they move from dinner to the living room couches, Yuuri finds that it’s the opposite. Being with Victor now, here, is the easiest thing Yuuri’s done in years. It’s almost effortless to laugh at Victor’s dumb jokes and make equally awful puns; when he plays tug-of-war with Makkachin, Yuuri feels as if he’s known the dog since puppyhood. As the discussion turns from bad skating outfits to favourite books to unpopular opinions on movies, Yuuri finds it hard to even be shocked that he’s not worrying about everything he says. And now they’re sitting in the living room, looking out of the bay window at the darkened cityscape, and Yuuri tucks his feet under his legs and never, ever wants to leave.

His inner thoughts have left a lull in the conversation, and out of the corner of his eye Yuuri sees Victor set down his glass of wine and stand up.

“Oh, Victor, I don’t need more wine—”

But Victor strolls over to where Yuuri sits and holds out his hand, and in the low light from the lamps he looks like something ethereal. “Yuuri Katsuki, may I have a dance?”

Yuuri looks down at Victor’s fingers, downs the rest of his wine, and bursts out laughing. Victor pouts.

“Okay, or not.”

“I’m s-sorry,” Yuuri giggles, wiping at one eye. “It’s just…I used to fantasize about you saying literally those exact words to me when I was thirteen.” In an instant he realizes what he’s said, and covers his mouth with both hands, feeling his face get hot.

Now Victor cracks up. “That’s…fucking adorable, honestly.”

“It’s creepy,” Yuuri mumbles from behind his fingers.

Victor kneels on one knee ( _on one fucking knee_ ) in front of the couch, and gently lifts Yuuri’s hands from his mouth. “It’s adorable,” he says again, more firmly this time. “Now would you dance with me already?”

Yuuri lets himself feel mortified for another twelve seconds before he nods, and all his tension melts away at the sight of Victor’s delighted face.

“Excellent,” he says, standing up. “Be right back.” He crosses the room and picks out a vinyl record from the shelf, carrying it to the turntable that sits beneath the TV. Yuuri watches Victor go through the delicate motions—placing the record on the platter, running a wide brush across the vinyl to clean it of dust, placing the needle just so—and his heart does so many flips and flops that it could probably medal in Olympic diving. Finally Victor stands and comes back to pull Yuuri to his feet, as [a song begins](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R_qNAW2CHw) with an oddly familiar guitar line—

Yuuri furrows his brow. “…Is this Kishi Bashi?”

Victor doesn’t answer; he just smiles, so brilliantly he could outshine the sun, and begins to dance—nothing complicated, just rocking from foot to foot, one hand curved just beneath Yuuri’s shoulder blade, and the other holding Yuuri’s left hand.

“ _You are the answer to my question / you are my accomplice in a crime / you are my wing woman and did I mention / we were together in another life? / In that dreaming, you probably were my wife…”_

If the heat in his cheeks is any indication Yuuri’s face might burst into flames at any moment. Victor has a Kishi Bashi album on vinyl. Victor knew about Kishi Bashi already.

“…Victor, I—”

“—I knew I wanted to kiss you at the Sochi banquet,” Victor grins, leaning in to let his lips graze Yuuri’s cheek. “Getting a Kishi Bashi lyric from you in China made me realize that as soon as I did, I’d never be able to stop.”

Yuuri has no earthly idea how to respond to that, so instead he rests his head against Victor’s shoulder and mumble-sings along with the chorus: _“Hotaru Hotaru / Futari no yume wo mireru hotaru no… / Hotaru Hotaru / Tsuneru to yume ga / Sameru hotaruyoru…”_

“I’ve actually been meaning to ask you,” comes Victor’s voice, breath tickling his ear. “What does that mean?”

Yuuri smiles, lifting his head to meet Victor’s gaze.

“ _Firefly, firefly, two dreams we saw of fireflies; with a pinch, we’ll be awoken, from the night of fireflies,”_ he recites. “Fireflies, are, um, supposed to be the souls of soldiers who have died in war, in Japanese mythology. Which is great inspiration for my free skate, I suppose.”

“Oh. That’s—”

“—they’realsoametaphorforpassionatelove,” Yuuri yelps, and if there is a god Victor will not have heard him properly—

Victor dips Yuuri like a ballroom dancer and kisses him. There is no god, and Yuuri’s kind of okay with that.

Alright, he’s more than okay with that.

“ _You are the answer to my question / you are my accomplice in a crime / you are my wing woman and did I mention / we were together in another life?"_

Yuuri closes his eyes, letting the lights shine softly pink through his eyelids. The wine has relaxed him, spreading sleepy tendrils from his heart out through his limbs; Victor’s arms around him feel so natural that it’s insane to realize they haven’t done this every single day for years.

_What’s the most surprising thing Victor WHO I’M IN LOVE WITH could do now?_

Yuuri’s eyes fly open and the hand Victor is holding suddenly feels clammy and cold.

“What is it?” Victor asks softly. Yuuri shakes his head.

“Nothing,” he replies, and then comes up with something that’s technically not a lie. “I’m nervous about the free skate, I think. I’ve been trying to improve the PCS, but nothing seems to work, and Yakov doesn’t seem to care.”

Victor looks disappointed. “It’s a shame. You've always been so good at it.”

“How do I fix it?”

“You have to find an element in the story that speaks to you, Yuuri. You know that.”

“But I'm not Russian or Serbian. I have no connection to the story.”

Victor looks as if Yuuri's slapped him, and he stops dancing. “You're focusing on that? Jesus, Yuuri, if I'd known Yakov would stamp the artist out of you I wouldn't have sent him.”

Yuuri knits his brows. “But that's the story, though. That's what Yakov choreographed.”

Victor reaches out and cups Yuuri’s cheek, and leans in; Yuuri tries to close the gap between them, but Victor dodges the kiss, which results in a frustrated mewl.

“That's not how it works,” he whispers against Yuuri's mouth. Yuuri lets out a frustrated huff.

“Then what should I do?”

Now Victor does kiss him. “Show the world the skating that you can honestly say you liked best,” he murmurs. “That’s the only shortcut to a gold medal that I know.”

“Is that how you got such high performance scores while Yakov was your coach?”

Victor grins mischievously. “Yeah,” he says. “That, and I also have a glorious and exalted history of not listening to a single word that man says.”

Yuuri's eyes flick down to where his fingers interlace with Victor’s, and then he chuckles. “I guess I’m carrying on the tradition.”

Victor’s face falls for a fraction of a second, or maybe it’s just a trick of the light. “Yes you are,” he coos, twirling Yuuri under his arm. By the time Yuuri has turned to see Victor’s face again, any trace of possible sadness is gone.

“ _In the twilight they danced and played / The fireflies, they go light like cray / In the dreaming we struck each other and prayed for pain…”_

Yuuri doesn’t know what to do, so he steps forward and puts his arms around Victor, pushed by the need to be close, to comfort, to apologize for something that’s fundamentally not his fault.

“Yuuri?” Victor murmurs. “Are you alright?”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “Yeah," he replies. _I’m in love with you. I want to stay._ “I’m—happy to be here with you."

Victor pulls back, hands on Yuuri's shoulders, and his smile is so bright it hurts to look at him. "Me too," he replies.

_I want to stay. I want to stay. I want to stay._

"I—"

_Say it, you idiot._

"I want to stay—tonight. I-is that okay?"

Victor's expression melts into one of such unparalleled joy that his mouth looks like a little heart. "Of course," he says. "I was hoping you would."

Yuuri closes his eyes and swallows the lump in his throat. "Then," he says, voice wobbling just a little, "you should give me a tour of, um, the rest of your place."

It's the worst pickup line anyone has ever uttered in the entire history of sexual beings on this planet.

It works.

~

Yuuri opens his eyes to see a dark and unfamiliar bedroom ceiling, and for a fleeting second he has no idea where he is. Then there’s a shift beside him as Victor turns over, and everything comes crashing back at once.

He checks the time on his phone—5:00 am, right on schedule. Even though he’s crossed a handful of time zones in the past six weeks, Yakov’s training regimen has become ingrained. Yuuri is wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep if he tried. He opens Instagram.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Nothing Matters When We’re Dancing, by the Magnetic Fields](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_KXCupJDBA)    _ **7h ago  
** “Dance with me, my old friend  
Once before we go  
Let’s pretend this song won’t end  
And we never have to go home  
And we’ll dance among the chandeliers  
  
And nothing matters when we’re dancing  
In tat or tatters you’re entrancing;  
Be we in Paris or in Lansing,  
Nothing matters when we’re dancing…”

 

_Damn it, Victor, you romantic idiot._

For a moment he contemplates lying in bed and watching Victor sleep or something similarly within the bounds of traditional romantic gestures, but his legs are restless, so he sneaks out from under the covers as gently as possible. Makkachin, curled up on the floor, raises his head in curiosity. Yuuri grabs his phone and headphones; he tiptoes to the bedroom door, which is slightly ajar, and slips out like a shadow.

Victor’s apartment is bathed in moonlight, bright enough that Yuuri can almost see the lettering on the spines of the books on the bookshelf. He lets his fingers dance over them as he passes, and he can’t help but imagine his own books mixed in with Victor’s. It’s silly, but he’s always thought of a blended bookshelf as the truest sign of everlasting love.

As he pads into the kitchen Yuuri shakes his head. _You’ve been with Victor for a few weeks_ , he chides himself. _You can’t think of this place as home._

But he has no home otherwise. Not really.

Detroit was where he trained, learned, grew, had panic attacks, and ate fries at midnight with Phichit as they watched the Russian Nationals on an illegal streaming site, inevitable malware be damned. It was home, in the same way that any place you live during college is home, but it wasn’t permanent, and Yuuri had always known that.

Yu-topia was home, but when he got back after the Sochi Grand Prix, it felt _wrong._ Waking up each morning in his childhood bedroom just left Yuuri feeling like a man yanked out of time. While he was gone, his mother gained a few pounds, his father started going grey at the temples, his sister got a new tattoo, and his friends had triplets. While he was gone, the train tracks were renovated and upgraded. While he was gone, Vicchan died. The little city by the sea moved on, and left him behind.

St. Petersburg is by far the most temporary place Yuuri has lived yet. The dorm room is so anonymous that Yuuri doesn’t feel anything towards it, other than basic primal reflexes: sleep in the bed, sit at the desk, pull clothes out of the drawers. The communal spaces are home for the other skaters in the building, but they’ve lived there for much longer—and Russia is their home, their native land, the country where they took their first steps and learned their mother tongue. Yuuri is temporary, quiet, and unable to make an impact for very long—effectively a ghost.

And now he’s here in Victor Nikiforov’s apartment, where things just feel warm and cozy and familiar; it’s the stupidest thing Yuuri’s brain has done yet, but he can’t help it. He crosses the living room to curl up on the window seat; he closes his eyes and leans back, letting the moonlight settle on his eyelashes, and he surrenders to a fantasy where he comes back to this incredible place every day—where he teaches Victor to make katsudon, where they spend lazy afternoons reading on the couch with their legs tangled together, and where they spend nights devouring each other with the tenderness that comes from knowing that you’ve got all the time in the world.

Yuuri exhales those beautiful images as he reaches for his phone, popping his earbuds into his ears. He’s feeling beautifully sad and elegantly emotional; it’s an Elbow kind of mood.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[One Day Like This, by Elbow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJ7keVBj6Y)_      **Just Now  
** “'Cause holy cow, I love your eyes  
And only now I see the light  
Yeah, lying with you half awake  
Stumbling over what to say  
Well, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day  
  
So throw those curtains wide  
One day like this a year would see me right  
Throw those curtains wide  
One day like this a year would see me right...”

 

He puts the song on repeat, closes his eyes, and lets his imagination run wild.

_Victor surprising Yuuri with breakfast in bed on their anniversary._

_Showering together after practice, filling the bathroom with steam as they fuck slowly against the granite tile wall._

_Watching fireworks through this window at New Year’s Eve, chuckling at poor Makkachin’s neurotic barking and breaking their kiss to go comfort him._

_Having friends over for a dinner party, showing off their domestic dream life._

_Curling up on the couch together and being just disgustingly, visibly, obviously, adorably in love._

Yuuri wraps his arms around his legs and rests his chin on his knees, and he watches the city as the sky begins to lighten. It’s now the day before the Rostelecom Cup; tomorrow Yuuri will skate his routines for the Grand Prix judges, as if his life hasn’t been completely transformed since his last competition. It’s another day gone, another day closer to the end of _this_ —whenever and however it happens, whether through defeat at a Grand Prix event or through Victor’s inevitable need to return to the world he ruled.

Yuuri never expected to have Victor at all; he’s been granted that wish, but he should not, must not, _cannot_ hope for it to be a happily ever after.

He swallows the lump of tears in his throat and a sad smile twitches at the corner of his lips. _Please,_ he begs the world, sleepy and silent many meters below. _Give me Victor’s time, if only for now._

“Yuuri?”

He turns to see Victor standing in the living room, holding his phone, with earbuds in his ears and his rumpled pyjama shirt hanging off of one shoulder. _Lord in heaven it’s criminal for a person to be this beautiful at half past five in the morning._

“Hey,” Yuuri whispers, wiping what he’ll pretend is sleep crust from one eye.

“Are you okay?” Victor murmurs, coming closer, and Yuuri pulls himself into an even smaller ball to make room when Victor sits down beside him.

“Yeah,” he replies. “Jet lag has my internal schedule all mixed up.”

Victor looks Yuuri up and down for a solid few seconds, and then pulls the earbuds from his ears and sets the phone aside—but not before Yuuri recognizes the Elbow album cover on Victor’s music player.

_Oh._

Victor reaches over and pulls one of Yuuri’s hands away from where it’s wrapped around his legs. He examines Yuuri’s palm, long fingers tracing the life line, the head line, the heart line. “Is that all?”

Anxiety hits Yuuri like a slap to the face, and he wants to fling himself into the safety of Victor’s arms, but instead he exhales a long steady breath. “Anxious. A-about Rostelecom,” he says.

Victor smiles, his touch gentle as a feather on Yuuri’s skin. “Don’t be,” he replies. “You’ll do great tomorrow, and the day after. I’ll watch you.”

“You will?” Yuuri asks, mesmerized by the nonsense patterns Victor’s drawing along his wrist.

“Yes. And after that we’ll come back here, and I’ll kiss—” Victor reaches for Yuuri’s other hand—“every—” he kisses one wrist—“inch—” the other wrist—“of you.”

 _What then?_ Yuuri wants to ask. Instead he lets himself be pulled into Victor’s arms, where he presses one ear against Victor’s chest and listens to the steady beat of his heart.

 _I want this so badly it hurts,_ Yuuri wants to say. _We’ve been together for less than two weeks but I’ve loved you my whole life and I’m_ in _love with you now._

This window seat could never become his favourite spot. This could never be their shared apartment, a place they could call home. It’s ludicrous to think of it. Rational Yuuri knows this, but it’s too late; his heart is primed to be broken into so many pieces that it’s possible he’ll never be able to put it back together.

_Victor Victor Victor._

_(For now. For now. For now.)_

“I don’t want this to end,” he whispers to himself, so quietly he hopes Victor won’t hear, but then he feels two fingers take his chin and tilt his head up. Victor’s blue-green eyes are somehow both unreadable and brimming with emotion at the same time, and Yuuri, desperate for an answer and desperately in love, finds himself suspended between joy and agony at the sight. For a second it seems like Victor might say something, but he doesn’t; he just silently lowers his mouth to gently meet Yuuri’s, and suddenly every nerve ending is on fire and Yuuri is surging upwards, kissing back, straddling Victor’s lap, hands clenched into the fabric of his shirt, and a short distance away Yuuri can hear Elbow singing through his abandoned earbuds: _“Holy cow I love your eyes / And only now I’ve seen the light / Throw those curtains wide / One day like this a year would see me right…”_

As their hands roam beneath clothing and their breaths become ragged gasps of lust, the first rays of daylight peek over the horizon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: I've had that Elbow song my to-use playlist since last January. I really like how it turned out. 
> 
> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri)  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me) and [Chapter 16](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/164344256147/saniika-setting-sun-chap16-iwritevictuuri)  
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right) and also drew [two scenes from Chapter 12](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/163014630514/i-had-done-this-a-while-back-but-just-finished-it).  
> \- shemakesmeforget made a lovely [mood board](https://shemakesmeforget.tumblr.com/post/161818989903/setting-sun-by-iwritevictuuri-fic-rec) <3  
> \- fellow writing pal Nenya made a [book/album cover](http://paledreamsblackmoths.tumblr.com/post/163851009780/i-its-petty-but-when-youve-run-out-of-fucks-to) that is so effin' cool  
> \- Pine drew [Victor torn between his responsibilities and his love for Yuuri](http://salanayuniasis.tumblr.com/post/165702031791/youre-gonna-have-to-face-it-youre-addicted-to) <3 <3 
> 
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3PbFlfurME&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx&index=109)


	18. Everything I Need's Between Those Thighs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pals! Thank you for your patience. In the last few weeks I've finished a master's degree, gotten a high-power job which I start literally the day after New Year's, decided to move in with my partner, and had about a million breakdowns over every one of those things. I also wrote this chapter, which I love and am posting while fighting off the effects of mild sleeping meds, so if there are any glaring errors in content or song links I will fix them in the morning. I'm just so fucking excited to finally be able to bring you this update. It has slightly less smut than my social media posts had originally promised, but I exchanged it for, well, you'll see. It's all good. We're happy here. There's a sneaky and *incredibly* dorky Disney reference and everything. I think you'll be pleased. 
> 
> Follow along with the whole soundtrack:  
> [Youtube playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)  
> [Spotify playlist](https://open.spotify.com/user/little-lost-star-1/playlist/7zKjFx6pNxSBQwBAcEdAVL)
> 
> *BONUS TRACK ALERT!* I have included the song "L$D" by A$AP Rocky on the soundtrack, because I listened to it over and over while I wrote this smut and I adore it, but couldn't find a place for it in the lyric posts no matter how much I tried. But I think it deserves to be heard, because hot d a m n

The Rostelecom arena is a marvel of Soviet-era design philosophy, stern and foreboding and unconcerned with bourgeois extravagances—or at least that’s how Yuuri feels, but truth be told he could be standing in a theme park and he’d feel just as anxious as he does right now, with the minutes ticking down to his short program run. The change room's full-length mirror might actually be from a theme park, because as he stands in front of it Yuuri sees someone he has trouble recognizing—a man with a determined glint in his eye and a decidedly confident posture.

That doesn’t seem right, but it doesn’t seem to be changing, no matter how many times Yuuri pinches himself.

He frowns, turning his head slightly, watching the crystals on his costume twinkle as they reflect green-grey fluorescent lights overhead.

He’s worn this costume dozens of times now, but today it feels like something brand new. He’s never noticed the subtle shading around the edges of the silver pieces on his shoulder, nor the tiny centimetre-long repair in the half-skirt’s seam. He’s always been able to think of it as Victor’s costume; now, for the first time all season, it feels entirely like his own.

Last time Yuuri skated the Eros routine, his whole world had been hypothetical: a possible run at the Grand Prix. A possible medal at the Cup of China. A possible lyrical conversation with Victor. A possible moment, planned out in his mind, when they would finally speak to one another again in a hotel hallway, their inevitable reunion swept up in the overall drama of the Grand Prix.

Every single one of those hypotheticals came true, and yet they still feel unreal, as if Yuuri’s been having an elaborate dream. His world has undergone a seismic shift in the interim two and a half weeks.

It doesn’t make Yuuri less nervous, but rather than being destructive he finds that the anxiety is simmering beneath his skin like fuel, creating propulsion and momentum.

In China, Yuuri had assumed that Victor was watching on television, or through an internet stream. There had been a comfortable idea of distance, a sense of safety which had bolstered his confidence in the moment and had carried him through. Had he known, in those last moments before the music began, that Victor was actually in the same building, Yuuri is positive that he would have choked, stumbled, flailed, lost his nerve.

Now, though. Now Yuuri knows that Victor’s in the building. Now he’s eagerly anticipating the opportunity to perform this piece for its original choreographer. Now he knows what it’s like to run his hands through that beautiful silver-blonde hair, to grip it, to tug just gently enough to drive Victor completely wild.

Now he knows the story so much better.

Out in the main arena, the previous skating group is finishing up, and Yuuri makes out a muffled announcement in rapid Russian which is soon overwhelmed by the dull roar of the crowd.

His breath catches in his throat.

_If I lose at the Rostelecom Cup, this may become the last time I can skate this program._

Yuuri’s anxiety pauses, faltering at this new fork in the road. Down one path resides the sheer tense terror he knows and loathes in equal measure—familiar but frustrating. Down the other is this defiant streak of exhibitionism that will almost definitely ensure he’ll have to spend at least part of the short program trying to prevent his erection from ruining the gender-fluid lines of the Eros costume.

_Maybe no one in Russia, or even the entire world, wants me to win._ The thought sends chills down his spine.  _I’m the only one who can change that world._

He pulls his phone out of his gym bag, opening Instagram in a moment of reflex. Yuuri posted a lyric a few minutes ago, before it was time to change; there’s no way of knowing where Victor is right now, but he definitely has his phone nearby.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Stand Out, by Tevin Campbell](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Y-7z6QFQk)_      **15m ago  
** “I’m under a spell, I'm in over my head  
And you know I'm going all of the way, till the end  
To stand out above the crowd  
Even if I gotta shout out loud  
Till mine is the only face you'll see  
Gonna stand out till you notice me”

 

Yuuri can’t help but smirk at the post, which he worried was entirely too dorky for its own good, but it seems to have done the trick:

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Hold On When You Get Love and Let Go When You Give It, by Stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SYO6a6PaTs)_      **4m ago**  
“The world won't listen to this song  
And the radio won't play it  
But if you like it sing along  
Sing ‘cause you don't know how to say it  
  
Take the weakest thing in you  
And then beat the bastards with it  
And always hold on when you get love  
So you can let go when you give it.”

 

_ Take the weakest thing in you, and then beat the bastards with it. _

Yuuri likes that.

“Katsuki!” comes Yakov’s bark from the doorway. “It’s time. Let’s go.”

They walk down an austere concrete hallway—and son of a bitch, Victor and Yuri Plisetsky are heading towards them, deep in an argument that flows too fast for Yuuri’s first-year Russian Studies fluency capabilities. He settles for looking Victor up and down as subtly as he can, taking in the fine cut of his suit, the rich colour of the fabric, the stripes of his tie, the shine of his shoes. Victor Nikiforov remains one of the most beautiful human beings on the planet, as far as Yuuri’s concerned, and it’s downright goddamn unfair that he’s afraid to even make eye contact right now.

For a split second Yakov slows his pace, and Yuuri’s heart drops to his toes at the thought of having to have a conversation with Victor and Yurio as if he hadn’t slept in Victor’s bed less than twenty-four hours ago, but Yakov just rolls his eyes and they keep walking without so much as turning to look back.

Yuuri wants nothing more than to look back. Instead he pulls his phone out of his pocket and unlocks it, finding a flashing Low Battery warning.

_ Crap. _

Yuuri can't take too long to think, not with Yakov walking beside him and the arena approaching with every step, so he posts something he's been keeping in his Drafts folder, pushing Post before he can talk himself out of it.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Warm Water, by Banks](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYG3iIcZOkw)_      **5m ago  
** “I got this need for you forming in my beating heart  
I knew the meaning right away, we only yesterday  
were worlds apart  
  
I think I may love you, if you give me some time,  
maybe you'll love me too…”

 

His phone battery ticks down to 3%, and Yuuri doesn't dare force a refresh on his feed lest it kill the battery completely. He has no idea where Victor was headed just now, or if he even has his phone with him.

Just as soon as he finishes that thought, his phone vibrates with a notification:  _ @v-nikiforov has a new post on Instagram. _

Yuuri freezes.  _ Why did I do this? What the fuck is wrong with me? Why would I say something like this before I skate? This was such a terrible idea— _

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Love on the Brain, by Rihanna](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0RyInjfgNc4)    _ **Just Now  
** "Must be love on the brain  
That's got me feeling this way, feeling this way  
It beats me black and blue but it fucks me so good  
And I can't get enough  
Must be love on the brain, yeah  
And it keeps cursing my name, cursing my name  
No matter what I do  
I'm no good without you  
And I can't get enough  
Must be love on the brain…"

 

— _Oh._

And that's when Yuuri's phone dies, the screen winking out to black without so much as a courtesy warning.

Just as well, because it's almost time for him to skate, and Yuuri spent an hour pumping himself up only to tumble down the rabbit hole of lyric posts and love he can't call love.

When they reach the green room, Michele Crispino can be seen on the monitors, taking his starting position at the centre of the ice. Yuuri is digging in his pocket for his earplugs when a reporter pops out of nowhere and shoves a microphone in his face.

“How are you feeling about this performance, Skater Katsuki?”

Yuuri opens his mouth to answer, but the first thing that pops into his head is a flash of sweat beading across Victor’s heaving chest.

“Oh, I think I’ll do fine,” he replies, unable to contain his grin.

“How has training in St. Petersburg been?”

_ I learned that Victor has a slight submissive streak and will instantly come if I hum the Eros tune while going down on him. Four days ago I stuffed a tie in his mouth and fucked him up against the wall of the arena supply closet and today he’s wearing that exact same tie. _

“Yuuri?”

He blinks. “Oh! Sorry. It’s been good. Very educational.”

“Would you like to stay on with Coach Feltsman after the Grand Prix?”

“If he’ll have me,” Yuuri answers, but in his mind it’s nothing but  _ Victor Victor Victor _ .

"Are you nervous skating this routine in Russia, knowing the fan backlash you've received online about moving to St. Petersburg mid-season?"

Yuuri pauses. He had  _ not _ known about any fan backlash, because it turns out that the best way to cure yourself of obsessive self-googling is fooling around with Victor Nikiforov on a regular basis. He should send his old therapist an email about it. 

_ Must be love on the brain _ . Damn right it is. For better or worse, forever. 

The reporter is still waiting for an answer, so Yuuri grins wickedly. “Don’t worry,” he says smoothly, looking directly into the camera. “I’ll show my love to the whole of Russia.”

The crowd roars, a sign that Mickey is reaching the last few moments of his routine; Yuuri looks over at Yakov, who jerks his head in the direction of the rink.

“Excuse me,” Yuuri says to the reporter, the chaotic fluttering in his chest resolving into a tight cage around his lungs.

“Good luck!” comes the reply, but Yuuri barely hears it over the applause, the announcers, the sounds of a few thousand people all sitting in a confined space. He’s remotely aware of his name being announced to the crowd, booming through the arena like a thunderclap, but all Yuuri can think of is the thudding of his heartbeat as he removes his skate guards and steps out onto the ice. When he turns back to grab one last sip of water, Yuuri has to work to swallow around the lump in his throat that appears as he sees Victor and Yurio standing at the curtain, watching.

Blue eyes meet brown, and Yuuri feels like his heart might explode out of his chest. Before he loses his nerve he pushes off from the barrier and skates to the middle of the ice, suddenly conscious of  _ every _ pair of eyes in the arena.

The crowd goes mostly silent, and it feels more like a threat than if they were booing. Yuuri sets his jaw and assumes his starting pose. For a moment it feels like he might fall apart right there on the ice, but his limbs remain strong.

_Take the weakest thing in you, and beat the bastards with it._

He lets a flirtatious smile creep across his face.

_ Before the crowd can intimidate me in enemy territory, I have to intimidate them. _

The music begins.

Yuuri swirls his arms around his body, turns his head on cue, and looks the judges dead in the eye before blowing a kiss, pretending he didn’t notice a head of silver-blonde hair directly behind them.

As muscle memory grips him like a tide, pulling him into the step sequence, Yuuri can’t help but think:  _ I know who I’m dancing for. _

Yes.

Every movement tells the story. Yuuri feels it in his bones, his cells, the atoms of his body.

_A handsome, charming playboy comes to town. The women fall for him left and right; he decides to pursue the most beautiful one of them all, but she turns him away, afraid to have her heart broken._

_She’s always wanted him, and no one else. She’s been waiting, all her life, knowing the impossible odds and waiting anyway. And when the playboy arrives, she panics, and he leaves._

_It wasn’t the right time. It wasn’t the right place._

_The playboy leaves behind a token of his affection: a crow, which sings to her mysterious songs that no crow should be able to sing—songs of longing, of questioning, of loneliness. One day the woman sings her own song, desperate to hear something new, hoping the crow will learn it and imitate her instead of repeating the mournful dirge over and over again ad nauseam._

_Instead, it takes flight, disappearing into the dark sky until she can’t even see its silhouette against the stars._

Yuuri lets the arena become a blur during his combination spin and imagines the woman’s confusion, her disorientation, her sense of being completely lost.

_The woman assumes the crow is gone forever, but a week later it returns to her window, and this time it knows a new song—one the woman has never heard before. A song about ongoing desire across a vast distance, of a lover lost before she was even found._

Spread eagle to a triple axel. Yuuri feels compact, streamlined, beautiful.

_The woman can’t bear the sadness of this new song, and again tries to teach it something else, but there’s no joy in her heart to put into song; all she can do is to sing out her own sadness, the regret she feels for having driven away the man she wanted. The crow once again disappears for a week, and when it comes back, it sings something new—and it sings in the playboy’s own voice. It’s unmistakable._

_He’s singing to her. She’s singing to him._

Yuuri winds up for his quad salchow and thinks of the way Victor smiled after the first time he kissed him. _ Watch me, Victor. _

It’s perfect.

_Now the woman sings for the playboy to return to her, to come back and bring nothing but his promise to be true, to love her, to make her feel like the most incredible person alive._

Yuuri barely registers that he’s done his combination jump until his skate hits the ice.

_As soon as she sees him again, the woman knows it can’t last, but she doesn’t care; she lets herself be swept away by his incredible blue eyes, the vulnerability in his laugh, the way he touches her with reverence as if she’s a precious and impossible treasure. She had every intention of casting him aside before he could move on; now she knows her heart will someday be broken, and he’ll be none the worse for wear. But it doesn’t matter; all that matters is the time they have now, the songs they can sing together, the silent harmony of their hearts._

Yuuri pulls out of his combination spin, into the final few choreographic movements.

_She loves him. She loves him._

_I love him._

The music stops.

~

109.97.

One oh nine point nine seven.

Yuuri squints at the arena’s Jumbotron, because that can’t be right, but as he counts  _ one, two, three, four, five _ heartbeats, the score stays where it is. 

Huh.

Yakov, sitting beside him in the kiss and cry, grunts in a slightly different tone than usual, and when Yuuri looks over he realizes with abject shock that it’s because there’s a smile on his coach’s face, for the first time ever.

“Excellent work,” Yakov says.

“Thank you,” Yuuri replies, trying to commit every second of this bewildering interaction to memory, because it won’t be long at all before Yakov’s back to his usual insults—

“You’re finally up to where I expected you to be at the start of this season.”

There it is.

Still, though, Yuuri can’t help but repeat the numbers over and over in his head. 109.97. His highest score all season, and Victor was there to see it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yuuri sees movement as Yurio makes his way onto the ice, with Victor behind him; and it could be due to his still-pumping adrenaline, but Yuuri is slammed with a sudden wave of guilt at monopolizing Victor’s time and attention for the past two weeks.

Yuri Plisetsky, so ruthlessly driven to succeed that he carves himself into a terrifying and beautiful monster—the type of competitor that Yuuri’s been terrified of all his life. Yuri Plisetsky, standing at the start of his career and gaining steady speed, while Yuuri is at the end of his own.

It's not Yurio's fault that any of this happened. It's not his fault that Yuuri failed at the Hot Springs on Ice, it's not his fault that Yakov left, and it's not his fault that Yuuri came to Russia. It's not his fault that Yuuri and Victor can't escape the pull of each other's gravity, falling into one another like two stars doomed to collide.

It's definitely Yuuri's fault, and there's not much he can do to make it better.

_ You could break up with Victor _ , a tiny voice whispers in his mind, but he squashes it. 

He could. He doesn't want to. Not now. Not yet. He doesn't let himself say  _ not ever _ . 

The announcer is speaking in Russian now, but Yuuri picks up on Victor's name, sees the crowd ripple with applause and cheers, and sees Yurio's face fall for a split second.

_ Yurio deserves to shine _ . Probably more than Yuuri does. 

Without thinking, he cups his hands around his mouth and yells: “Good luck, Yurio!”

Even though his despised nickname is usually a surefire way to get his attention, Yuri doesn’t indicate that he’s heard—but Victor turns at the sound, catches Yuuri’s eye, and smiles so warmly that he could probably melt all the snow in Russia.

_ Thank you _ , he mouths. 

_ I love you, _ Yuuri doesn’t say back.

 ~

After he watches Yurio’s short program, Yuuri gets caught up in yet another interview and then even more socializing, and by the time he’s able to escape the short programs are over and the arena is clearing out; he gets herded into a taxi along with Yakov and Emil Nekola, the entirely too talkative skater from the Czech Republic. When they arrive, Yuuri’s aching bones and sticky skin demand an immediate shower, and it’s only after he’s soaked away the competition and towelled off that he finally gets a chance to properly check his phone, now charging by his side of the bed.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Holy, by Zolita](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAIils0jUVA)_      **2h ago**  
“Worship your body as you walk my way  
You're the only one who can make me pray  
I fall at your feet, your breath defined  
And underneath my skin's an intrinsic shrine  
  
Drink my tears, I'm at your mercy  
I love you most, but I'm not worthy  
I'll give my soul, sacrifice me  
Cause your love is holy  
Is holy…”

 

Yuuri exhales through pursed lips, doing the math in his head and realizing that the post was made during his short program. _ I guess I got the message across _ . 

His heart won’t stop pounding, though now it’s for a very different reason, because the whole idea of Victor Nikiforov worshipping Yuuri Katsuki’s skating is completely ridiculous and also  _ incredibly _ arousing. And damn if Yuuri didn’t just put on the best show of confident seduction this side of sixteen glasses of champagne. As he listens to the song’s pulsating beat and dark melody, Yuuri can feel the dark playful feelings bubble up inside of him. 

Eros Mode Yuuri is awake and ready to play this fucking game.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Young God, by Halsey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhJRQSs6UQ)    _ **Just Now**  
“He says, Oh, baby girl, don't get cut on my edges  
I'm the king of everything and oh, my tongue is a weapon  
There's a light in the crack that's separating your thighs  
And if you wanna go to heaven you should fuck me tonight.”

 

As the post loads, Yuuri notices a set of photographs—Victor, Yurio, and a few other skaters, sitting in what looks like the hotel's restaurant. His heart jolts with a tiny spike of social anxiety; even here, thousands of kilometers away from anywhere he's previously called home, the fear of being excluded never quite fades.

But, if he's honest, it's extremely hard to pretend that he isn't head over heels in love with Victor at the best of times, and being in the same room in public is a sweet kind of torture. Here in his hotel room, Yuuri can stretch out, order room service, and indulge in some high-octane teasing without a single shred of mercy. As long as Victor takes the bait.

His phone vibrates in his hand:  _ @v-nikiforov has a new post on Instagram. _

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Worship, by Years and Years](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjKDzsD5jVo)_      **Just Now**  
"I worship, high praises  
My longing drives me crazy for you  
My kingdom for your graces  
I'm not gonna tell nobody  
I'm not gonna tell nobody 'bout you  
  
Just tell me how I can prove  
I'm the one for your fire  
And I'll take you higher  
I'll do it for you  
And you can worship me too"

 

Bingo.

_ So much worshipful language, Victor. _ It makes Anxious Yuuri's skin itch, but Eros Mode Yuuri is far more confident—dangerously, arousingly, incredibly confident, and more than happy to see Victor Nikiforov throw himself on this altar and say please, because when Victor needs something he doesn't so much  _ say _ please as he  _ aches _ it, with every letter tripping off his tongue in the throes of agonized, blissful desperation. 

_Also he definitely wore that tie on purpose today._

Yuuri catches his bottom lip between his teeth and lets it go in deliciously slow motion.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Get On Your Knees, by Nicki Minaj and Ariana Grande](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QarmxDjaXE4)    _ **Just Now  
** “I don't need a dozen roses  
You ain't gotta wine and dine me, no  
I don't need a pretty poet  
Ooh, gettin' all emotional  
You gotta beg for it, beg for it  
I wanna see you lookin' up  
Baby, I'mma need you to beg for it  
  
'Cause we are just animals  
Baby, it's primal (it's primal....)  
I want you on all fours  
(And before I let you walk, you gotta show me how you crawl)”

 

Yuuri's cock twitches, a reminder that he’s still only in a towel. As much as he wants to just sit and obsessively refresh Instagram for the rest of time, Yuuri forces himself to lock his phone; he tosses it screen-down onto the bed and goes to get dressed, picking out clothes that don’t make him look hideous, even though he’s got no plans for the evening. Then he calls down for room service—nothing fancy, just some chicken and rice, but his stomach is growling.

With his order on the way, Yuuri sits up against the headboard, puts on his over-ear headphones, and finally opens his phone again.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Flesh, by Simon Curtis](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEfKooMunLI)_      **4m ago  
** “Push up to my body  
Sink your teeth into my flesh  
(Get undressed, t-taste the flesh)  
Bite into me harder  
Sink your teeth into my flesh  
(Pass the test, t-taste the flesh)  
Hold me up against the wall  
Give it till I beg  
Give me some more  
Make me bleed, I like it rough  
Like it rough rough rough  
Push up to my body  
Sink your teeth into my flesh”

 

Yuuri has never gone from zero to aroused so quickly in his entire life—not even when he was fifteen and in the death grip of adolescence’s hormonal tidal waves.

_ Victor Victor Victor. _ They're in the same building, so close but yet so far. Yuuri wants to touch himself so badly but he curls his hand into a fist instead.

_ There has to be a way to get to him. _ They didn't make any plans, but Yuuri has to imagine that Victor's suffering just as badly as he is right now. 

A knock at the door snaps Yuuri out of his reverie, and he furrows his brow. It's too early for his room service order, so—could it be?

_Did Victor discover my room number?_

Yuuri scrambles off the bed and crosses the room, his heart thudding against his ribs. He opens his door to find a skinny hotel porter standing in front of him, swimming in a uniform that’s at least two sizes too big for him.

“M-Mr. Katsuki?” he asks, his voice cracking with the ravages of puberty.

Yuuri tries to lean against the door as casually as possible, as if he wasn't expecting a booty call just now. He clears his throat. “Yes, that’s me.”

The porter holds out a crisp white envelope. “Um. Someone named Kidsoff Eighty-Eight asked me to deliver this to you.”

Yuuri blinks. “I…okay. Thank you,” he replies, puzzled, as he takes the envelope and feels something inside it—thicker and stiffer than paper. Curious.

He steps back to swing the door closed, but the porter puts up one hand to stop him.

“Also I was, uh, asked to wink at you.”

“You were what?”

The porter looks Yuuri square in the face and proceeds to close and then open his right eye with all the enthusiasm of one of those dolls with movable eyelids which Mari loved for a brief but terrifying time in the early nineties. Before Yuuri can shake away the memory of finding severed Baby Alive heads in his bed, the porter has disappeared from sight.

Yuuri turns back to the room and lets the door swing closed behind him as he rips open the envelope, shaking a hotel room key card out onto his palm. Out of the corner of his eye he sees his phone light up with a notification from where it sits on the bed, and he distractedly flubs his passcode two times before finally unlocking his screen.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Just a Little Bit, by Kids of 88](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cnifqa9LEw)    _ **29s ago  
** “Working your fingers to the bone  
Driving you mad and you should've known  
Wrap it up baby, I'm taking you home  
Get off your throne, I want you alone  
Take just a little bit of time  
Just to make you feel alright  
Just enough to ease the vibe  
Hit the light  
  
You've got pressure dripping off your shoulders  
Let me be the one to relieve it  
Let's get unprofessional  
Don't you know it's gonna feel much better with  
Just a little bit”

 

_Kids of 88? Really, Victor??_

Right on cue, almost as if by telepathy, a private message notification bounces up on the screen.

 

@v-nikiforov:  _ 1733\.  _

@katsukiyuuri:  _ no. that was the worst pun.  _

 

His phone shakes with another new post notification.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Get You, by Daniel Caesar](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQFVqltOXRg)_      **Just Now  
** "And when we're making love  
Your cries they can be heard from far and wide  
It's only the two of us  
Everything I need's between those thighs  
Every time I look into your eyes I see it  
You're all I need  
Every time I get a bit inside I feel it…"

 

And then:

 

@v-nikiforov:  _ I can keep sending these all night _

@v-nikiforov:  _ Though I'd much rather be doing something else all night ;-)  _

@v-nikiforov:  _ (You. I'd rather be doing you.) _

 

Yuuri didn't realize it was possible to grin so wide that his face hurt. He pulls on his shoes and grabs his phone, headphones, room key, and wallet, slipping out into the hallway like a man on a mission—which, he supposes, he is.

He doesn't want to get caught in an elevator with anyone who might recognize him, so he opts for the stairs instead. It's a ridiculous number of flights on already aching muscles, but in the grand scheme of things Yuuri supposes that men have done far more taxing things in the pursuit of sex and love.

When he reaches room 1733, Yuuri triple-checks that he's alone in the hallway before tapping the key card, heart leaping to his throat as the tumblers fall into place. The room is pitch black; he creeps inside, letting the door fall shut behind him, and risks a too-quiet call:

"V-Victor?"

No answer. As Yuuri's eyes adjust to the gloom, he can see the rough shapes and outlines of the space; it is, once again, much larger than the one he's staying in. Being Russia’s champion apparently has its perks, or maybe Victor just likes the finer things in life—and also Yuuri Katsuki.  _ There’s an exception to every rule, I guess. _

He's shaking his head to clear away that thought when the door tumblers whir to life behind him, eliciting a startled and undignified yelp. The door opens to reveal Victor, framed from behind with the light from the hallway casting a halo on his hair and giving his skin a surreally beautiful glow. Yuuri barely has time to take in the image before they're plunged into darkness again as Victor closes the door. He waits for a pair of lips to find his own, for roaming hands to touch him, but nothing happens, so he does what he always does when he's nervous: he opens his dumb mouth.

"Um. Hi."

Yuuri can see the flash of Victor's teeth as he smiles. "Hi," he replies. "I'm so glad you came."

"Of course I came," Yuuri scoffs playfully. "I…I was hoping you'd ask." Thank god for the darkness; while it's unfortunately hiding Victor's perfect face, it's also helpfully covering up what Yuuri can feel is by far the hottest his cheeks have ever burned. His skin prickles with goosebumps as Victor comes closer, reaching out, his fingers outlined in silver from the scraps of moonlight through the windows.

As soon as their fingers touch, there’s a sharp knock at the door.

Yuuri flattens himself against the wall behind the door, heart pounding, as Victor gives him one long lingering glance before opening the door as far as the safety chain will allow.

“Vitya,” comes the grunt from the hall, and Yuuri sees Victor’s right hand start to tremble, hidden from view of the hallway. He reaches out and takes it, giving a reassuring squeeze, and Victor squeezes back with the desperation of a frightened man.

“Yakov,” Victor replies smoothly, his face betraying none of his distress. “What can I do for you?”

_Please don’t ask to come in. Please don’t ask to come in. Please don’t—_

“May I come in?”

Yuuri hates God. His knees go weak, and he feels himself gently kneel on the carpet, landing without making a sound.

Victor, though, maintains his poker face. "I literally just got in, and I'm tired," he replies, without so much as a stutter or stumble. Then, with a quick squeeze of his hand, Victor switches to speaking in Russian, shutting Yuuri out of the conversation entirely.

As Victor and Yakov's voices wash over him, Yuuri looks up at the sharp sash of light falling across Victor’s face, and is overwhelmed with how fucking insane it is that he’s even here, holding the hand of a person he’d only ever thought of in the most abstract of terms for most of his life. It makes no goddamn sense, but yet it’s real—real enough that Yuuri can see the way Victor’s Adam’s Apple bobs as he swallows, can smell the  _ shockingly  _ expensive hand lotion he uses, can feel the small straight scar on Victor’s index finger, from a run-in with broken glass when he was fifteen. Yuuri strokes Victor’s hand, running his fingertips up and down across the scar, memorizing the way the skin tightens across the inside of the knuckle. 

_ Poor Vitya _ , he croons silently. Without thinking, he brings Victor’s hand up and brushes the scar against his lips, as if to kiss it better over a decade after the skin knit itself back together. 

Victor never pauses, speaking rapid and perfectly accented Russian, but behind the door his finger curls, brushing itself against Yuuri’s mouth in response. Yuuri kisses more, lips wrapping ever so slightly around Victor’s fingertip, chasing it with his tongue to lick, just a little. Victor’s hand jerks—but he doesn't pull away.

Yuuri feels himself grin, more wickedly than he’s ever grinned before.

He’s on his knees in the dark in front of Victor Nikiforov. How many times has he imagined this in the past decade or so?

Something inside Yuuri's mind whispers  _ push _ . 

Yuuri pulls Victor’s hand towards him, gently stroking the skin, imagining he can feel each fingertip's ridge; he lowers his mouth and gently licks Victor’s index finger, swirling his tongue around the tip before sucking it, lips pursed and mouth hot.

Above him Yuuri hears Victor trip over a word, halting for just a moment.  _ Push _ , he thinks again, and suddenly Yakov's voice on the other side of the door feels more like a challenge than a threat. 

_ I fall at your feet, your breath defined / And underneath my skin's an intrinsic shrine. _

Yuuri licks up the length of Victor's finger and then closes his lips around it, tongue dragging along the underside of each knuckle as he slowly pulls away. As soon as he lets it go Victor brushes his finger back against Yuuri's lips, desperately pushing against his teeth until he opens his mouth wider and lets it slip inside. Yuuri repeats his ministrations, his tongue working in worshipful luxurious motions, only this time Victor is definitely  _ thrusting _ in and out, just a little bit—small enough that the rest of his hand doesn't move, but purposeful and excruciatingly arousing. Victor and Yakov's voices become more and more abstract in Yuuri's mind, mere background noise to the steadily building ball of pulsating want that's twisting inside of his gut. Yuuri's so lost in the task that he doesn't even track that the conversation has ended until Victor steps back in order to close the door. 

As soon as the lock has clicked into place Yuuri is nearly knocked back into the wall with the sudden weight and momentum of Victor tackling him, straddling his lap, reaching up and grabbing a handful of hair and yanking backwards hard enough that Yuuri can’t control his moan. Victor runs his teeth along Yuuri’s jaw, nipping just a little, clearly dying to bite.

“You are fucking  _ insane _ ,” he growls. Yuuri feels that wicked grin return to his face. 

“Now why would you say something like that?” he asks innocently, suppressing a full-body quiver at the look on infuriated lust that flashes across Victor’s face.

For a split second part of Yuuri worries that Victor is actually mad, but then his hand brushes against the rock hard erection straining at the front of Victor’s pants. Yuuri feels his face light up.

“Oh, my, Victor, does the idea of a public performance excite you?”

Someday he’s going to have to ask himself some serious questions about why he can’t seem to just shut up and be sexy around Victor Nikiforov. Today is not that day.

Victor groans, arching into Yuuri’s touch. “You’re going to be the death of me,” he moans.

“Mm, no,” Yuuri tuts, pulling Victor’s belt from its loops and setting to work on the fly. “Maybe a series of little deaths, though.” He pulls at the back of Victor's thighs, encouraging him to stand on his knees, and then pulls Victor’s cock out of his pants and swallows it without so much as a teasing lick. Yuuri has to suppress the urge to giggle as Victor stuffs his fist in his mouth to muffle some truly undignified sounds.

“God, Yuuri…”

Yuuri pulls off of Victor with an obscene  _ pop _ . “Yes, Victor?” he asks, looking up through his lashes.

“I’ve created a  _ monster _ ,” Victor pants. He clambers to his feet, holding out a hand to pull Yuuri up into his arms. 

Yuuri opens his mouth to retort, but he's stopped by a kiss so strong it leaves him feeling breathless. He can feel Victor's erection against his own, separated by just two lousy layers of fabric; Victor must read Yuuri's mind, because he reaches down to unzip Yuuri's pants, taking him in hand and sending shudders throughout his entire body. Yuuri kicks off his pants and pulls off his shirt as quickly as he can, unable to stand more than a single breath without another kiss. His fingers slide into Victor's waistband, pulling his shirt up, desperate to run his hands across— _ yes _ , fuck, the most perfect skin ever. Yuuri groans into Victor's mouth, and Victor spins them around and playfully shoves Yuuri backwards onto the bed, pouncing on top of him with ravenous intensity. 

Yuuri pulls at Victor's shirt, running his fingers across the front to start unbuttoning it. "Fuck, I wish I could rip it off," he mumbles, and while he didn't mean to say it out loud Victor's face immediately lights up.

"Do it," he whispers back.

Yuuri pulls away. "Wait, really?"

Victor looks down, examining his hem. "Okay, well, maybe not this shirt, it was like a hundred and twenty Euros," he says, an edge of disappointment in his voice.

Yuuri lets his hands wander over Victor's torso, flicking a button open and sliding his hands into the gap he's created to feel the muscles underneath. Then, before he can stop himself, Yuuri grips either side of the shirt and  _ yanks _ , sharp and quick. The fabric rips open with a pop, buttons scattering every which way, and Yuuri feels the blood drain from his face as he realizes what he's done. 

"Oh my god, I—" he's cut off as Victor kisses him, all teeth and panting groans, grabbing Yuuri's wrists and pinning them to the mattress on either side of his head and sucking a mark into his collarbone so hard that it very well could leave a mark, and Yuuri wouldn't mind in the slightest.

"Fuck," he gasps out as Victor grinds against him and he matches the rhythm. "I'm sorry, I—"

"—No," Victor pants, nipping at his jaw. "That was so fucking hot, Yuuri, I can't  _ deal _ with you, I swear to god if you weren't skating tomorrow I'd take you  _ apart _ ." 

Yuuri can only moan in response, shifting his hands to intertwine his fingers with Victor's own. "I need—please, I  _ want _ —"

"—Yes," comes the reply in his ear. "Say it.”

"—I want you," Yuuri finishes, arching his back to meet Victor's chest. "Please.  _ Please _ . Victor…"

Victor releases his hands and slithers down Yuuri's torso to his groin, scraping his teeth along Yuuri's hip bone and catching the waistband of his boxers, pulling them down a little before finishing the job with his hands. Yuuri is open-mouthed, panting, ready to beg, but he doesn't have to; his pleas disappear into incoherent gasps as Victor sucks his cock down like he's starving for it.

_I love you. I love you. I love y—_

“ _ God _ , I want to fuck you so badly,” Victor gasps, his fingers tracing along the inside of Yuuri's thighs and the curve of his ass.

“ _ Yes, _ ” Yuuri keens, his whole world narrowing to the precise places where Victor is touching him, gasping out as a fingertip grazes across his hole—but then moves away.

"You're skating tomorrow," Victor murmurs against his skin.

"Don't care," Yuuri hisses through gritted teeth, his hips writhing of their own accord.

Victor hums. "I do," he replies, licking the head of Yuuri's cock. "I don't want to hurt you or send you off balance."

Yuuri wants to protest more, but he knows Victor is right, and hears himself sigh.

"Truth be told," Victor says mischievously, "I'm perfectly happy right here, in between these." He presses a kiss to the inside of each of Yuuri's thighs.

Yuuri squirms, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. "Victor, I—"

"—Oh no," Victor cuts in. "You're not allowed to tell me you don't like your thighs."

He huffs. "I don't, though."

Another kiss, this time with a tiny flick of the tongue. "Why?"

"Too thick," Yuuri mumbles, feeling his face get hot. He gasps as Victor nips at the skin on the inside of his thigh, then runs his tongue across the same spot.

" _ No _ , Yuuri," he purrs, "they're  _ stunning _ . You're so sculpted it would make me seethe with jealousy if I wasn't in—if I wasn't able to kiss you. Watching you skate is  _ torturous _ . I've had songs set aside praising your thighs for months. I can't stop thinking about burying my face into your lap—" Victor pulls at Yuuri's legs so that they wrap around him, crossing at the ankle above his back, and moans when Yuuri's thighs tighten against his face. "Fuck, Yuuri, I want to  _ live _ here." 

The mental image is so absurd that Yuuri dissolves into giggles, covering his face with his hands. He's so focused on trying to get himself back under control that he only faintly tracks Victor crawling back up on top of him. He peeks through his fingers, and Victor grins.

"Hi."

Yuuri moves his hands away, leaning up for a kiss. "Hi," he echoes, inhaling sharply as Victor reaches down to take both of their cocks in hand. "W-what's up?"

Victor leans down, trailing kisses along Yuuri's neck. "I want to fuck your thighs," he whispers roughly, and the lust in his voice is so thick that Yuuri bucks into his hand. " _ God, _ Yuuri, please." 

There's no way in hell Yuuri's going to say no, not when the adoration and ache in Victor's voice is making him painfully hard. There are aphrodisiacs, and then there's Victor Nikiforov prostrating himself before one of the body parts Yuuri has always been self-conscious about. He nods as best he can between Victor's constant kisses.

"Turn on your side," Victor instructs, "away from me. Yeah. Just like that."

Yuuri hums in amusement. "I've always hated spooning," he murmurs, staring out into the dark. Victor wraps one arm around his waist, grinding his cock against Yuuri's ass.

"Why?" comes the question, panted into his ear.

"I…" Yuuri stops to think. "I guess it felt too…intimate? That's silly. I don't know."

He feels a kiss at the back of his neck. "Does this feel too intimate right now?"

Yuuri's smile is so wide that he's actually a little bit relieved that Victor can't see it; he buries the side of his face into the pillows all the same, so his "no" comes out slightly muffled.

"No?" Even in the dark, Yuuri can imagine the playful smirk flirting across Victor's lips. "That's good. I love spooning. It lets me do this—" he grinds against Yuuri's ass again— "and this, at the same time." He reaches down to stroke Yuuri's cock once, twice, and when he pulls away to grab something from the far bedside table Yuuri whimpers at the sudden lack of warmth.

"Victor…"

He hears a bottle cap open, then close.

"Open your legs," Victor rasps, running his hand between Yuuri's thighs as they part. Yuuri feels Victor's cock replace his hand, slick with lube warmed by his skin.

Yuuri experimentally presses his knees together, and is rewarded by Victor groaning into the flesh of his shoulder. Emboldened, he squeezes his thighs together the way he does during a loop jump, feeling the drag of skin on skin as Victor begins to thrust against him.

"Good?"

" _ Yes _ ," Victor moans. His hand, still wet with lube, travels down to grasp Yuuri's cock, stroking in rhythm with his thrusts, and Yuuri throws his head back against Victor's shoulder, lost in something very close to ecstasy. 

"Yuuri," Victor purrs in his ear, elongating the  _ u _ sound until it's like a prayer chant. "I—"

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Something cracks in Yuuri's mind and he comes with a shuddering gasp, his limbs going cold, blood rushing through his ears with a faint  _ whoosh, _ and spots exploding in front of his eyes. As he comes down from it he realizes he's laughing between breaths, giddy with endorphins—and that Victor is laughing too, in the same sweet, joyful, breathless exhalations. 

Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut and dissolves into full-blown giggles, his whole body shaking with them, each jolt sending another miniature wave of pleasure through him.

“Okay,” he hears himself wheeze, “I think I like spooning now.”

Victor chuckles as they shift, curling around each other. “Excellent,” he murmurs back. “All part of the plan.”

“The plan?” Yuuri startles himself for what must be the hundredth time with how easy it is to flirt with Victor—the way his voice takes on a playful cadence normally reserved for bad movie nights with Phichit and Five-Drink Yuuri.

“Yep,” Victor grins. “The grand plan. Go back to Russia, become a coach, start talking to you via song lyric, discover that heavy bass lines are my kink, be forbidden from seeing you, and completely and repeatedly break that rule. Then profit, at some point. I think.”

Yuuri cocks an eyebrow. “Heavy bass lines are your kink?”

“They are when you send them,” Victor coos, leaning in for a quick kiss. “You’ve got excellent taste in sex music. And music in general.”

Yuuri can feel himself blush. “Oh. I…thank you. I’m…”  _ in love with you. _ He shakes his head to clear the thought. “I’m glad it worked.” 

“Truth be told I quite like this whole lyric conversation thing,” Victor murmurs. “I think it should be adopted to fit all life events. Graduations. Job promotions. Requests to do the dishes. Marriage proposals.”

Yuuri suppresses a giggle that’s half amused and half terrified. “I’ll, um, see what I can do?”

Victor’s smile is worth the terror. “I look forward to it,” he replies. He nuzzles Yuuri’s nose in an Eskimo kiss, which Yuuri always thought was dorky but now seems ridiculously romantic.

_ Funny how that keeps happening. _

“I like grand gestures. And surprises,” Victor says drowsily.

“Shall I turn my free skate into a strip tease?”  _ Oh my god Yuuri why couldn’t you just blurt the l-word like a normal person?  _

“What happened to my innocent little katsudon who was too shy to be close to me?” Victor’s tone is teasing, but Yuuri feels his face fall, and he sits up, wincing as the cool air hits his skin.

“He was too shy, and he lost everything,” he answers, staring out into the darkness of the room. “He…” he swallows. “He doesn’t want to hesitate again.”  _ Even though it’s going to break his heart, _ he doesn’t add. 

The mattress shifts; Yuuri feels Victor’s arms come to circle his waist, and a gentle kiss on his shoulder. He closes his eyes and leans back against Victor’s chest, solid and warm, and feels himself smile again.

“Yuuri,” comes Victor’s voice, whispered with the intimacy that can only come from lips grazing the curves of his ear. It sends a shiver down Yuuri’s spine as he feels Victor’s lips turn upwards. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes,” he breathes instantly, his mouth already open before the question had even finished.

“Back in my apartment,” Victor murmurs, his breath tickling Yuuri’s neck, “you said ‘I don’t want this to end.’”

Yuuri’s eyes snap open.

“I—”

Victor must feel him tense up, because the grip around his torso tightens in a reassuring squeeze.

“I don’t want it to end either,” he continues in that same low murmur, almost a growl, voice thick with emotion or tears or arousal or  _ something _ . “I…like this. I don’t want it to stop. I don’t think it has to.” 

The tone and the message both course through Yuuri’s body, riding his steadily increasing pulse through every vein, and he realizes that he’s pressing back against Victor more firmly, chasing the comfort of his presence.

“Victor…” his voice betrays his insecurity.

“Yuuri,” Victor croons, pressing a kiss into his neck, “you doubt yourself so much. But look at what you did today.”

“What did I do?” Yuuri whispers, and in response Victor’s grip tightens again, pulling back a little more, and Yuuri can feel the hard shape of Victor’s cock against his back. He muffles an involuntary groan as Victor grinds against him, reaching behind his head to wrap his hand around the back of Victor’s neck and pull him closer.

“You seduced every last person in that arena,” Victor growls softly. “They all thought you were skating for them, for the audience. But you weren’t, were you?”

Yuuri inhales, ready to answer, but—

“You skated just for me,” Victor continues, his breath becoming hotter in Yuuri’s ear, hips rolling in a steadily quickening rhythm. "No one else. You were seducing me in front of the entire world. You had me under your thrall."

“Yes,” he agrees, tilting his head back so Victor can trail kisses up and down his neck.

“You were skating a story. Your story. Our story.”

Yuuri nods. “Yes.”

“But it was different from what I choreographed back in March,” Victor says, his hands moving up and down Yuuri’s torso, creeping lower and lower each time. “The moves were the same, but the emotion was different.”

Yuuri gasps as Victor’s hand brushes his navel, just above his hardening erection. “Things have— _ ah _ —changed.” 

"So incredible," Victor whispers, breath tickling Yuuri's ear. "My Eros, with thighs that deserve epic ballads to be written about them, with a killer triple axel, with, god, just the most  _ incredible _ ass. I love it. I love all of it.”

“I love  _ you _ .” The words escape before he can stop them, but Yuuri claps his hand over his mouth nonetheless, ice suddenly running through his veins. He waits for Victor to freeze up, to pull away, to recoil. 

Instead, Victor takes Yuuri’s chin in his hand and turns his head, their lips meeting swiftly and passionately, taking Yuuri completely by surprise. When he pulls away, Victor’s eyes are sparkling in the dim light.

“My Yuuri,” he whispers roughly, and with a jolt Yuuri realizes he’s holding back tears. “I love you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to feelslikefire, iambic, witchbane, and paledreamsblackmoths for lyric suggestions! 
> 
> As always, comments and love are highly highly appreciated. 
> 
> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri), where you can follow and support me in other ways if you'd like!  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me) and [Chapter 16](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/164344256147/saniika-setting-sun-chap16-iwritevictuuri)  
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right) and also drew [two scenes from Chapter 12](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/163014630514/i-had-done-this-a-while-back-but-just-finished-it).  
> \- shemakesmeforget made a lovely [mood board](https://shemakesmeforget.tumblr.com/post/161818989903/setting-sun-by-iwritevictuuri-fic-rec) <3  
> \- fellow writing pal Nenya made a [book/album cover](http://paledreamsblackmoths.tumblr.com/post/163851009780/i-its-petty-but-when-youve-run-out-of-fucks-to) that is so effin' cool  
> \- Pine drew [Victor torn between his responsibilities and his love for Yuuri](http://salanayuniasis.tumblr.com/post/165702031791/youre-gonna-have-to-face-it-youre-addicted-to) <3 <3  
> \- I feel like I'm forgetting something! If I did, please message me and I'll add it. 
> 
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5Y-7z6QFQk&index=117&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx)


	19. You Give Me New Emotion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEY HI HELLO I'M ALIVE AND BACK and boy howdy oofa doofa that sure was four months of straight writer's block I had. I struggled with this exact point in the story going way back to the earliest planning stages, and I proceeded to struggle a whole hell of a lot more with it, throwing out idea after idea and just sitting in tears on multiple occasions.  
> BUT THEN! Then, friends, the block broke, and I proceeded to write the bulk of this chapter in the past 48 hours. I'm back, I've got amazing new plans, and I'm so goddamn fucking excited to love this story again. 
> 
> I owe everything in the world to my beta editor lalalascivious, and to [spookyfoot](http://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/pseuds/spookyfoot), my amazing friend, who finally helped me break the block. Please go read her work and give her love, because she deserves it. 
> 
> And thank you, readers. Thank you so so much for your patience. I hope you find that this was worth the wait.

_Yuuri Katsuki. You've just told Victor Nikiforov that you love him, and he actually replied saying that he loves you back. What do you do now?_

_Good question_ , he says to the imaginary paparazzo in his head. _I have no fucking idea, but let's join me live in the field for a real-time update of how this is going to go spectacularly badly. Over to you, Real Yuuri._

He blinks, crashing back into reality, to a hotel room where he's sitting with Victor Nikiforov, who is pressing kisses all over his face.

"I—"

"Yuuri," Victor croons, "I love you too, I love you so much—"

Yuuri blinks again, and hears himself mumble, "sorry?"

_Right on schedule, Tom, it looks like we're off to a great start in the Yuuri Katsuki Fucks Up championships here in Moscow—_

“God damn it, I have a song lyric for this,” Victor growls playfully, throwing the covers aside with a flourish. Yuuri yelps at the sudden blast of cold air against his skin, suddenly clammy, but he’s quickly distracted by the sight of Victor’s bare back, bathed in moonlight as he rummages around on the floor for his pants.

“Aha!” Victor grins, popping back up with his phone in hand. “Hang on.” He curls over his phone, turning away so Yuuri can’t see, leaving him blinking into the darkness until he’s startled by the _buzz_ of his own phone on the nightstand.

_@v-nikiforov has a new post on Instagram._

Yuuri realizes he’s chuckling soundlessly under his breath, or maybe he’s hyperventilating on a micro scale, as he unlocks his phone. He can feel Victor watching him as he reads.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Love They Say, by Tegan and Sara](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-lMhCtmRs)_      **Just Now  
** “The first time I saw your face I knew I was meant for you  
The first time you said my name I knew I was meant for you  
  
Love, they say it heals all wounds  
Love removes the hurt in you  
Love, I know that this is true  
Love, they say that it is blind  
Love, they say it all the time  
Love, I know that they are right…”

 

The song begins to play from Victor’s phone, and as Yuuri listens he realizes that the words on his screen are swimming. He feels Victor take his chin in two fingers and tilt his head up.

“Yuuri?” Victor murmurs. “Are you—crying?”

“ _Love, they say there's only one / Love, the kind that's not undone / Love, I know you are the one…”_

Yuuri laughs, wiping his eyes. “No, I’m just…Past Yuuri is having a lot of emotions right now? We did not remotely prepare for this.”

Victor’s eyes glitter in the reflected light of their phones as he chuckles. “Do you need a minute?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “No, I’m okay. Just a little…” he falters.

Victor’s eyebrows climb up his forehead. “Just a little…?” he prompts, but all Yuuri can do is shrug, still smiling.

“I can’t…I don’t really have the words? I’m sorry. I—” realization surges through him. “Hang on.” He unlocks his phone and hits New Post.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[New Emotion, by K.I.D.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZFVra4B-U8)     _ **Just Now**  
“You're not like anything that I've ever seen  
We live in a strange land in a violet dream  
  
I've been sad for most of my life  
All my love only bloomed to die  
But I love you deep as the blue ocean  
You give me new emotion”

 

After a moment’s hesitation, Yuuri also pushes Play on his music app, letting the song spill, mildly tinny, from his phone speaker. He watches Victor’s face as he reads the post.

“I’m…” His eyes flick up to meet Yuuri’s and in that second Yuuri thinks he might have a heart attack but it’s mostly just his whole body trembling with _I love you, I love you too._

“Oh, is _this_ what we’re doing?” Victor grins playfully. “Alright. I can play.”

Yuuri shakes himself free from his thoughts. “You can…play?” But Victor is already back in his phone, eyes twinkling with mischief.

“There,” he says, tapping the screen with a flourish. On cue, Yuuri’s phone lights up with a notification, and he looks down just as a new song begins to play from Victor’s speakers:

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[I Belong in Your Arms, by Chairlift](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e8Ql9qFA2o)    _ **Just Now  
** “Crossing my heart  
Open wide  
You're my crystal and clover  
All of me, honestly  
Is dedicated to hold you  
Swear to god, double knot  
What would you do if I stole you tonight?  
Why waste time?  
  
Because the world goes on without us  
It doesn't matter what we do  
All silhouettes with no regrets  
When I'm melting into you  
‘Cause I belong in your arms  
I belong in your arms”

 

Victor is smiling so wide that his mouth looks like a heart. “The language of love,” he proclaims with a sweep of his arm. “You know. Instagram lyric posts.”

Yuuri cracks up, fingers already flying on his phone. “Game on,” he grins.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Little Heartbeat, by Cataldo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3ZnlZOWbNY)    _ **Just Now  
** “Is this the part where we finally touch?  
Tearing through the knee-high underbrush?  
I can still hear your whisper, ‘I want the best of your love.’  
  
But please god be dumb for once  
and don't ask if she means The Eagles or The Emotions  
Set the pace, raise the stakes, ‘Listen babe, you've got the best of my love.’  
  
I've got what you need  
if you want to feel your little heart beat.  
So hot, so sweet, you know I want to feel your little heartbeat.”

 

Yuuri can’t help but mouth the words as the song fills the room. He watches Victor’s face light up with joy.

“Oh, Yuuri,” he croons, “this song is _so_ perfect for you. I can’t believe I didn’t find it first.”

Yuuri giggles, feeling his cheeks get hot, and Victor leans over to steal a kiss.

“A song about freaking out and over-thinking romance? Sounds fake,” he jokes, and it’s all so easy he forgets why he ever thought it should hurt.

He's pulled out of his reverie by Victor, who dramatically clears his throat and wiggles his eyebrows in the direction of Yuuri's phone.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[You Are My Compass, by Cecil Frena](https://cecilfrena.bandcamp.com/track/you-are-my-compass)_      **1m ago  
** “You conquered eyerolls friend  
You taught yourself to speak  
You drew your talons in  
When you could have broken me  
  
You are, you are, you are my compass  
Though night is thick and hope is bloodless  
You are, you are, you are my compass  
Somehow you see…”

 

Yuuri crawls over to wrap his arms around Victor, sighing into the warmth of his embrace. "I could actually do this all night, I think," he murmurs, and Victor rumbles with a low chuckle in response. Yuuri's phone buzzes in his hand.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[All Night, by Icona Pop](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FWRT9C9XMQ)_      **Just Now  
** “Come on baby we can hit the lights  
Make the wrongs turn right  
We can smash the club, make the pop go rock  
With a love this deep, we don't need no sleep  
And it feels like we could do this all night  
We could do this all night  
Yeah, everything is alright  
  
We got the keys to open paradise, yeah, paradise  
It feels like...we could do this all night…”

 

As the song starts to play, Victor disentangles himself from Yuuri; he leaps from the bed, stark naked, and begins to sing along with the words, _outrageously_ out of tune, accentuating the thumping beat with a dorky dance that’s mostly shimmying hips and head bobs. Yuuri takes one look and bursts out laughing, trying in vain to muffle his giggles as Victor fearlessly continues to make a complete fool of himself.

"S-stop, please," Yuuri wheezes, which only makes Victor dance more energetically, until Yuuri is howling with laughter and tears are streaming down his cheeks, sides aching like he just ran five miles.

Victor maintains a perfect poker face as the song ends. "I mean, this all did start with dancing," he says innocently, which sends Yuuri into another paroxysm of giggling. "If you really think about it, Yuuri, this is all your doing. You and sixteen glasses of champagne."

Yuuri nods, hands already flying across his phone's keyboard.

"Yes," he agrees, shifting over as Victor sits back down on the bed beside him. "That…was a thing I did."

Victor nuzzles into Yuuri's shoulder. "That was a thing I'm extremely _glad_ you did," he murmurs. If he says anything else, it's drowned out by the song that's now blasting from Yuuri's phone.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Fred Astaire, by Jukebox the Ghost](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrShb4TjS0A)    _ **Just Now**  
“Even when I'm a drunken mess, you don't care  
Still like me better than the rest, I swear  
I don't understand it  
How you like me when I'm dancing  
  
Those eyes, damn, those eyes, they get me every time  
Those eyes, in those eyes, I can do no crime  
When I dance like I don't care, you call me Fred Astaire”

 

The beat flows through him, upbeat and infectious, and now it's Yuuri who finds himself standing up to dance. He's drunk with joy, giddy with endorphins, and in that moment it really seems like he could take over the entire world if he wanted. Instead he lip-syncs along to the song's clap-along chorus, trying to be as silly as he can, expecting Victor to laugh.

But Victor doesn't laugh; he doesn't even smirk. Instead he rests his chin on his hands, watching Yuuri with a terrifyingly earnest look in his eyes, as if he's watching something precious and important instead of a 23-year-old moron with still-visible stretch marks from his off-season weight gain.

Yuuri grinds to a halt, suddenly extremely self-conscious. He resists the urge to cross his arms over his stomach, but only barely.

Victor blinks, looking up as if pulled from a reverie. "…Why did you stop?" Why is he still _looking_ at Yuuri like that?

"Um. You were…it looked like I was, um," Yuuri sighs. "Was I embarrassing you?"

Victor's jaw drops. "Are you kidding?"

Yuuri feels _extremely_ naked. "…No?"

Victor opens his arms. "Come here," he orders, and Yuuri obeys, squeaking as Victor flips them over so that he's on top, chin resting on Yuuri's chest, looking up through his eyelashes to meet Yuuri's gaze.

"Um," Yuuri says. "Hi."

"Yuuri Katsuki," Victor says, clearly and distinctly. "I love you."

Yuuri feels his face get hot. _Say it back_ , he tells himself, but his mouth refuses to obey. _We literally just did this. What is wrong with you, Yuuri?!_

Victor taps Yuuri's sternum, yanking him back to reality. "Hey," he says softly. "You okay?"

Yuuri breathes through waves of anxiety he didn't even realize were building. As soon as he acknowledges them, he feels his shoulders relax, and the waves dissipate. "I…sort of have a tendency to get in my head too much sometimes? Sorry."

Victor smiles. "Okay," he replies, reaching over for his phone. "Then let me say this to you, Yuuri's Head. Also, by the way, we need to have a talk about how often you make this brilliant boy nervous. It's just not polite."

Yuuri cracks up, which earns him another dazzling smile. Victor hands Yuuri his phone so he can see what's just been posted, and the song hums lightly against Yuuri's chest as it plays from the speaker.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Nothing’s Gonna Hurt You Baby, covered by Cara Salimando](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvunuNKNk7w)    _ **Just Now  
** “When we dance in my living room  
To that silly '90s R&B  
When we have a drink or three  
Always ends in a hazy shower scene  
  
Nothing's gonna hurt you baby  
As long as you're with me, you'll be just fine  
Nothing's gonna hurt you baby  
Nothing's gonna take you from my side…”

 

Yuuri closes his eyes and lets the music wash over him. "You're amazing," he murmurs, and he feels Victor shift upwards to kiss him. "And I love you. And I can't believe this isn't a dream."

"Nope," comes the answer in his ear. Victor's breath is warm, like the rest of him. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me. I'm _very_ adoring."

Yuuri grins, eyes still closed, and turns them both over so that he can bury his nose into the crook of Victor's neck. "Can I stay here tonight?"

Victor hums. "I don't know, that's pretty unconventional, immediately after saying you love me," he chuckles, and then very quickly adds: "I'm joking. Of course you can stay here."

Yuuri feels Victor shift, and behind his eyelids he sees the bedside light go out, plunging them into darkness. As they settle in, Yuuri hears a piano melody, and he smiles against Victor's skin. He knows what the subsequent lyric post is going to be without having to look, so he doesn't, instead trailing a line of kisses up his neck until he reaches Victor's lips, where he's met with equal passion and intensity. One kiss. Another. And another. Victor's hands are roaming up and down Yuuri's back, his nails just starting to dig into the skin.

 _One more,_ Yuuri thinks. _One more kiss. Then I'll stop, and we'll brush our teeth and shower and go to bed._

He doesn't, and neither does Victor, and their moans disappear beneath the song as fills the room around them.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[The Luckiest, by Ben Folds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9bRmuP-kQY)_      **5m ago  
** "I don't get many things right the first time  
In fact, I am told that a lot  
Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls  
Brought me here  
  
And where was I before the day  
That I first saw your lovely face?  
Now I see it everyday  
And I know  
  
That I am  
I am  
I am  
The luckiest…"

 

~

 

Yuri Plisetsky is many things. He’s young, ambitious, talented, full of potential. He’s overlooked, ignored, taken for granted. He’s a grandson—and, he begrudgingly admits, a son too.

He’s not stupid. That’s a big one.

He’s also not heartless, despite his reputation. Most of the time, he pushes back against the emotions that people keep foisting on him out of a combination of discomfort and amusement. Some men want to watch the world burn; Yurio likes to see the world squirm, when he’s in a good mood about things.

But every so often, like a stomach bug, someone hits him right in the feels, and it goddamn sucks. _Especially_ when that person is Victor Nikiforov.

"What happened to you last night?" Yuri growls. They're at the rink for a quick review of the jump composition of his free skate.

"Nothing particular," Victor shrugs, taking a sip of his coffee. There's the oddest look on his face—Yuri can't interpret it at all. "Oh! Yakov stopped by. He had lots of notes about your short program. I've never seen him so nitpicky."

Yuri narrows his eyes. "Oh?" he tries to keep his voice neutral, but he can't help but betray the—is that _protectiveness_ he's feeling? Gross.

Still, he can't forget everything Victor said about how Yakov had talked to him, and how defeated he looked in those days afterwards. Yuri isn't stupid; he's also not new to parental figures trying to hide their vitriol from the kids. Victor and Yakov have circled each other like wary dogs ever since the Cup of China; some days they've been civil, but never more than that. And now here is Victor, talking about Yakov again, but now he looks—placid. _Satisfied_. As if he's okay with this.

Old and buried emotions burst to the surface, hitting Yuri like a punch in the gut.

"Are you—" he swallows. "Are you and Yakov alright?"

Victor blinks, snapping out of his own reverie. "Oh! Um. I don't know?" he chuckles awkwardly. "He's been mad at me before but never for this long."

Something clicks in Yuri's brain. "Right," he replies, his disbelief obvious in his voice.

Victor sighs. "Yurio, don't worry about it," he says with a wave of his hand. "It's not important. I'm fine."

 _But are you, Victor?_ Yuri thinks. _No. You're sitting here with a goofy look on your face._

This is worse than moping. Moping, at least, indicates misery; it indicates that someone's poor treatment is having an effect on you, even though that effect is negative. But Victor looks… _happy._ Which means that the big dumb idiot has gone and convinced himself that Yakov shunning him is somehow deserved.

Victor hasn't been a fantastic coach. But no one— _no one_ —deserves to think that their parent doesn't love them. And Yuri has no illusions about the fact that Yakov is a father to Victor, just as he is to every other member of Team Russia.

 _You're not fighting it,_ Yuri realizes with horror, watching Victor check his phone. _You've given up._

And then a new realization dawns on him: if Victor has given up because of Yakov's shunning, then how will he ever return to competing?

In that moment, Yuri makes a phenomenally stupid decision.

"But, Yurio, listen," Victor is saying. "You did great yesterday; please don't believe anything otherwise. Your nerves were normal. You're going to kick that Canadian weirdo's ass today."

Yuri sucks down a sip of water, plans already clicking together like puzzle pieces inside his head. "And Yuuri's."

Something flashes across Victor's face, too fast for Yuri to catch in full. "Yes," he replies smoothly. "And Yuuri's."

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post - ’[Til I Found You, by Josef Salvat](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOCtm0bUC08)_      **10m ago**  
“I've done things I'm not proud of  
Dark things just to fit into a crowd  
I thought I belonged to  
Just goes to show  
  
In a jungle like this you can't ever know  
If you're lamb, or you're lion, or both  
You are whatever gets you through  
  
I've spent my life wandering through the wilderness  
Playing whatever role I had to play  
Crumbling under the weights of expectation  
Doomed to watch my youth slip on its way  
Till I found you”

 

@yuriplisetsky: _Lyric Post -[Are You Satisfied?, by Marina and the Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFT36MENAL0)_      **3m ago  
** “High achiever don't you see  
Baby, nothing comes for free  
They say I'm a control freak  
Driven by a greed to succeed  
Nobody can stop me  
  
Cause it's my problem  
If I wanna pack up and run away  
It's my business if I feel the need to  
Smoke and drink and sway  
It's my problem, it's my problem  
If I feel the need to hide  
And it's my problem if I have no friends  
And feel I want to die  
  
Are you satisfied with an average life?  
Do I need to lie to make my way in life?  
Are you satisfied with an easy ride?  
Once you cross the line  
Will you be satisfied?”

 

_What’s the most selfless thing you could possibly do?_

Yuri feels his upper lip curl into a snarl. It’s been days, but he can’t get the question out of his head.

_Most of the time, we don’t make sacrifices; our sacrifices make us._

Yuri doesn’t believe in epiphanies, but in the days since his chat with Japanese Yuuri it’s like he’s been given a pair of glasses that show him an entirely new world hidden beneath the surface of what he knows. Suddenly he sees Victor not as a hopelessly frustrating failure, but as something else; he sees the sparkle in Victor’s eyes when he encourages Yuri after a successful jump, and the way he tilts his head ever so slightly away from wherever Yakov is standing in the rink. Yuri sees how Victor comes up with an excuse to leave the room if Yakov ever enters; he sees the flash of hurt that crosses Victor’s face whenever Japanese Yuuri lands his quad flip.

Suddenly Yuri sees Victor's terrifyingly random decision to apparently be just fine with being rejected by the man he's seen more often than his own father in the past decade and change.

Suddenly he _cares_.

And, as a result, suddenly he's standing in the hotel restaurant, where he can see Yakov Feltsman sipping on a comically small cup of coffee. The free skate is in four hours.

Yuri exhales in a huff through his nostrils and rolls his shoulders back. _Now’s as good a time as any. Go._

_What's the most selfless thing you could possibly do?_

“Yakov.”

Yakov stops at the sound of his name, his eyes rolling over to look Yuri up and down as if it’s the first time they’ve ever met. Yuri stands his ground and maintains eye contact, and in short order Yakov juts his chin out at the empty chair at his table, a silent order of _sit down_.

“Yuratchka,” Yakov says into his cup, his voice echoing. “What do you want?”

Yuri swallows a lump in his throat he didn’t realize he had. “Two things,” he offers, and holds up his finger. “First, I want to reduce the number of jumps in the first half of my program from four to two.”

Yakov’s eyes widen, and he plunks his coffee cup down on the table so hard that some coffee sloshes over the side, staining the white tablecloth beneath. “Do you have a _death wish_ —”

“—And two,” Yuri cuts him off, holding up a second finger, “I want you to give Victor a goddamn break."

Yakov turns an impressive shade of red. "Excuse me?" he snarls.

Yuri can't believe he's not terrified right now. "Victor is better at this than you think he is," he replies, absently chasing a fold in the tablecloth with his finger. "He deserves your support. He's had a rough year, but he's trying, and ever since you and Yuuri showed up he's been acting super strangely and I'm tired of seeing it. And he deserves better, and I think you know that, and I think you also know that you hold his future in your hands." Yuri stands up, holding his head high. "That's all I wanted to say. I'll see you at the free skate."

He manages to get out of the room before collapsing into a chair, his hands suddenly shaking.

_What's the most selfless thing you could possibly do?_

Yuri still isn't sure, but the fact is that even though he's just told off the most frightening man in Russia, he feels a tiny bit better.

 

~

 

Another day, another locker room, another free skate. Another bench, and another session on Instagram.

Yuuri could get used to this.

It used to be so frightening. Now all he can think of is _I love you. I love you too._

"Five minutes, Yuuri," an attendant says, and Yuuri nods.

 _First, a ritual_. All skaters are superstitious, and Yuuri's new magical thinking luck cycle involves Victor and music lyrics. A lot of things do, actually.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Oh No!, by Marina and the Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr-SqRWImmI)_      **Just Now  
** “One track mind, one track heart  
If I fail, I'll fall apart  
Maybe it is all a test  
'Cause I feel like I'm the worst  
So I always act like I'm the best”

 

It's so strange, though. Yuuri is nervous, but it's not as _acute_ as it normally is. He's not shivering against a brutally cold wind of self-doubt and anxiety; he's wrapped in a few new layers, of _I love you_ and _I love you too_ , which are insulating him from the worst of it. It's still there, but it's gently muted.

 _That post is not accurate,_ he realizes. He creates a new one.

"Katsuki! Put that goddamn thing down and get out here," Yakov calls. Yuuri hits Post as fast as he can.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Legend, by The Score](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jecQcgbyetw)    _ **Just Now  
** "Here we go, here we go  
It's my turn to make history  
Here we go, here we go  
When I'm gone they'll remember me  
  
A dreamer with the fever to be great was all I ever want, was all I ever wanted  
A fighter with the fever for the fame was all I ever want, was all I ever wanted  
  
Got me singin' like  
Bang, bang  
Bang, bang  
Bang, bang  
Let's fire the weapon  
Bang, bang  
Bang, bang  
Bang, bang  
Won't stop till we're legends"

 

~

 

He doesn’t get to indulge in them very often, at least not in traditional ways, but Victor Nikiforov really likes puzzles. He’s always been a fan of mysteries and riddles, finding pleasure in both the process of putting the pieces together and in the rush of pride that comes from finally discovering the answer. When he’s looked at each skating routine like a puzzle, he’s always come out the other side with something very close to true art.

So, he figures, he can solve the riddle of Yuuri Katsuki, perhaps once and for all.

Here are the facts of the case:

Victor stands before a criminally talented skater with a serious case of high-functioning anxiety, an explosion of bewildering puzzle pieces in his own right. There was the piece that fell, quite literally, into Victor’s lap at the Sochi Grand Prix Final banquet; there was the shrinking violet he met in Hasetsu, who surprised Victor in the worst possible way; there was lyric post after lyric post, each one so specific and deliberate that Victor let himself fall under the helpless fantasy that they were actually having a conversation.

There’s a quad flip, a piece which becomes sharper and sharper with each passing day.

There’s the look in Yuuri’s eyes anytime they’re together, a look that is lustful and overjoyed but also shadowed with a quiet sadness that Victor can never quite forget.

There are the words, finally spoken aloud, which are still ringing around in Victor’s head even hours later like church bells, tolling: _I love you. I love you too._

There’s the way Yuuri’s posture changes as soon as his skating music begins, pulling at something thrilling and dark in Victor’s gut—a voice that whispers _he is skating this better than you ever could_ , and Victor has no option but to agree. There is a downright terrifying feeling of freedom in admitting that fact.

There is an even scarier feeling that tugs at the sleeve of Victor Nikiforov, Five Time World Champion, and says _we can beat him_.

There’s a piece of himself beyond fear, beyond ambition, and beyond sense, that replies _and then he can beat us._

There is a loop of these latter two voices—a pair of puzzle pieces which click together effortlessly, winding around each other like yin and yang, and Victor is beginning to realize that the rest of the puzzle must be built around the smooth edges of the shape they make.

_We can beat him._

_He can beat us._

_I love you._

_I love you too._

Yuuri is a puzzle, and the answer is becoming clearer with every passing moment.

He's circling the ice with a fierce look of determination on his face, and Victor can't help but remember another piece: his advice a few nights ago, in the comfort of his apartment in St. Petersburg. _Show the world the skating that you can honestly say you liked best._

It's a puzzle piece that far too many skaters forget. And Victor has been away from his competitive career for just long enough that he can count himself among that number. He'd forgotten what it was to love skating, to go out on the ice and feel the thrill and terror in equal measure in the eternity just before his music would begin. Watching Yuuri do his final few warmup laps, Victor knows that he's watching a pure and compelling act of love, and he aches to feel that way again.

 _You could,_ the voice in his mind whispers. _We can beat him. He can beat us._

 _Maybe,_ Victor nods to himself. Maybe he can time his return for the Russian Nationals. It's not too late. He can quit as Yurio's coach after the GPF, and invite Yuuri to skate with him, and they could take over the world.

"Representing Japan," the announcer drawls, "Katsuki Yuuri."

Victor raises his hands to applaud along with the rest of the crowd, but he's stopped by a firm and terrifyingly familiar hand on his shoulder. He turns around to see Yakov, his gaze steely and unreadable.

"Vitya," Yakov grunts. "You know Mikhail and Anna from the FFKK."

Victor looks over Yakov's shoulder to see two Russian skating federation agents, their expressions also neutral. He forces himself to smile. "Yes, I do. Hello."

They both return the greeting with terse nods, and Victor feels the blood drain from his face. "What—" he swallows. "What can I do for you?"

"We'd like to speak with you," Mikhail says, just as the opening notes of the Slavonich March blast through the arena. Victor desperately tries to keep himself from looking back at the ice.

"R-right now?"

Yakov raises his eyebrow. "Do you have anywhere else to be?"

Victor's heart is pounding against his chest, but he plasters a winning smile on his face. "Not at all," he replies smoothly, following Mikhail and Anna out of the arena, the sounds of Yuuri's skates on the ice haunting him with every retreating step.

 

~

 

As the Slavonich March begins, Yuuri has never felt as strong nor as beautiful as he does right this minute. Every trill of the violins presses against his nerves like a bow against strings, reverberating: _I love you. I love you too._

 _The problem with the routine_ , he realizes as he goes in for his first combo jump, _is that it doesn't have a story._ It's based roughly on the events which inspired the March itself, but that's basically it; Yakov has never encouraged Yuuri to come up with much more of a story than that. It's clear that Victor got his expressiveness from another source, because it certainly wasn't from Yakov Feltsman.

Yuuri is so deep in thought that it takes him a second to realize that he's been in the air for longer than normal, and when he lands the jump— _oh,_ he realizes. _That was a triple at the end there, huh? Yakov will be pleased._ It was originally _supposed_ to be a triple, but was changed at the Chugoku, Shikoku, and Kyushu Championship and never changed back.

Yuuri can't stop himself from grinning, because Victor is in the audience, and he will have seen that.

 _I love you. I love you too_.

He hits his next few jumps flawlessly, as if they're singles and doubles instead of triples and quads. It's kind of insane, but every time Yuuri turns to prep the jump, he thinks _I love you_ , and suddenly it's easy. Everything feels lighter, more streamlined, _perfect_.

 _Victor Victor Victor._ Yuuri isn't afraid to skate in front of the Living Legend anymore. In fact, he realizes as he does another combo, he's _hoping_ Victor is watching him. _Because that's the man I love, goddammit._

Right at that moment, the militaristic marching section of the music begins, and Yuuri sighs as he does his step sequence. _This is the biggest cock-block of a song ever, honestly._

And then, just as he lands his triple-triple combo, it hits him: _I should have made my entire season’s theme about love._

He wouldn't let himself think about it for the longest time, because it hurt so much to remember losing Victor and the humiliations before and after, but he had started this year—this season, his _final_ season—with the goal of getting his love of skating back.

 _Mission accomplished,_ Yuuri smiles to himself, pulling out of a spin. _And then some._

More than Victor, more than Vicchan, more than even himself, Yuuri has always loved skating. His anxiety has gotten in the way, clouding his vision, looming over him like a storm cloud and drenching him in doubt, but beneath it all is the truth that's kept him going, through a coach he didn't want and a heartbreak he couldn't call a heartbreak and a long-distance virtual affair conducted using the words and language and love of other people. It's skating; it's always been skating. Yuuri's first love. For a long time, his only love.

 _Victor Victor Victor._ _I love you. I love you too._

Victor isn't a replacement, though, and he's not competition. It's all part of the same whole, one thing flowing into another. Victor Nikiforov has long represented the kind of skater that Yuuri wants to be; but there's another Victor, the one who danced like a huge dork and who calmed Yuuri down with music lyrics and who is so precious and so incredible that Yuuri knows he'll do almost anything to keep Victor in his life. To be able to skate with him forever.

_I love you. I love you too._

His toe pick slams into the ice and carries him up and up and up, weightless, flying. Perfect.

_I love you, Victor. Watch me._

And then Yuuri blinks, because the arena is no longer a muted blur in his peripheral vision. He's standing in the middle of the arena, one arm held up triumphantly in his final pose, and the audience is applauding with incredible enthusiasm. His free skate is done.

 _Huh,_ he thinks. _That wasn't so bad._

 

A few minutes later Yuuri sits in the kiss and cry, sweat stinging his eyes, and doesn’t even think to look up at the scoreboard screen until a terrifying roar erupts from the crowd.

“Yuuri Katsuki’s free skate score is 219.93!” comes the announcement

Yuuri’s hands go numb, and the crowd suddenly mutes into a distant thudding _whoosh_ in his ears. He’s distantly aware that he’s gaping like a fish but he can’t seem to control his face. He feels like he might throw up, but instead he turns to see Yakov’s eyes glinting with demented, terrifying glee, and his hand outstretched to take Yuuri’s own.

“Congratulations,” he says. “That wasn’t bad at all. Your PCS could use some work, but we have time.”

Yuuri nods, but he’s a million miles away inside his mind, circling an ambitiously frightening thought spiral that he’d packed away a very long time ago—a well of circular thoughts that went _You can beat Victor someday. And then Victor can beat you._

 _219.93_ , he thinks, as his brain whirs through figure skating scores like an old calculator. Because while the announcer hasn’t said it, Yuuri knows that every single person inside the arena knows two things to be true:

One, he skated a technically flawless program, and he’s definitely just won the Rostelecom Cup.

Two, he was less than a point from beating Victor Nikiforov’s world record.

 

The medal ceremony flashes past in a blink. It's not the first gold medal Yuuri's ever won, but it's definitely one of the more significant ones, and yet the entire moment seems to last only as long as a heartbeat. Yuuri is somewhere else, lost in his mind, dreaming of the moment when he can speak to Victor again, to tell him _I love you_ , because he can.

He drifts through press questions and handshakes and pictures with what seems like an endless stream of people, and yet he doesn't see Victor at all—not until he takes a wrong turn and ends up wandering down a hall of administrative offices, where he finds Victor sitting on a bench, face wan and pale.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" Yuuri asks, beaming bright. "Did you see—" he stops, though he can't immediately put his finger on why.

Victor's Adam's apple bobs as he swallows. "The FFKK wanted to speak to me," he replies, and Yuuri is suddenly filled with a sick, horrifying thought: what if they've been caught?

 _You idiot,_ his anxiety whispers, wrapping clammy fingers around his throat. _You did this to yourself. You did this to Victor. You’ve ruined your life, and his. You’ve destroyed your career because of a crush you’ve had for half your life._

He drops down onto the bench next to Victor.

_Every horrible thing you think about yourself is true. Except—_

Yuuri’s eyes fly open, his breath knocked from his lungs as something inside him puts on the brakes.

_Except I don’t regret this._

There have been many, many times in Yuuri’s life when he’s desperately wished to have the ability to turn back time, to rewind his most humiliating moments and do them over again, to be able to shuck off the sickening vertigo of anxiety as nothing but a bad dream. But when he thinks about kissing Victor, Yuuri can’t bring himself to wish it undone.

_I love you. I love you, too._

The thought that he might never skate again is too painful to bear, but Yuuri still can’t help but say to himself: _I don’t regret this._

He’s Schrödinger’s skater, both committed to his career and willing to burn it all down in the name of love—love that has been voiced, declared, made reality through observation. Yuuri feels himself sit up a little straighter as his shoulders relax.

He’s managed panic attacks plenty of times. He’s never before been able to extinguish one this way, by telling the truth and believing it.

 _Whatever happened, we can deal with it,_ Yuuri decides. Then he swallows the lump in his throat and keeps breathing.

"Victor. What happened?”

Victor stares at the ground, his face carefully neutral. Yuuri feels time slow to a crawl. _Please_ , he silently begs, as his anxiety beats against the inside of his skull, desperate to get out and cause the usual meltdown. _Please tell me whether I’m doomed. Please tell me if I’ve ruined everything._

“They wanted,” Victor finally says, “to offer me a coaching contract.”

Yuuri blinks.

“You—they want you to coach?”

Victor nods. “Yes. Full time, with the Russian team. They want me to be Yakov's second in command.”

The relief that floods through Yuuri is so intense that it pitches him forward, flinging his arms around Victor’s neck. Victor flinches, but only for a moment, before hugging Yuuri back, and it’s not until Yuuri exhales in a shudder that he realizes he’s crying.

“Yuuri?” comes Victor’s voice in his ear, which just makes Yuuri sob again, his whole body shaking. He goes to speak and instead bursts into hysterical giggles.

"I'm sorry," he eventually blubbers. "I just—I thought—" he yanks himself backwards, out of Victor's arms, and looks around to ensure that the hallway is still empty. "I'm sorry. I thought we were in trouble for a minute. Oh my _god_."

Victor chuckles, but his eyes aren't sparkling. "No," he says, reaching over and interlacing his fingers with Yuuri's. "Nothing like that, I'm happy to report. No, this is…this is good."

"I love you," Yuuri blurts, leaning in for a quick kiss. "And I'm going to say it a lot. Sorry."

Now Victor breaks out into a beaming smile, the kind that makes the entire hallway shine a little bit brighter. "How was the free skate?" he asks. "I'm sorry I missed it, but the officials dragged me away for the meeting and were _very_ insistent about it."

Yuuri inhales, ready to tell Victor the results, except suddenly the gold medal hidden beneath his warmup jacket feels very heavy against his chest.

He thinks of Victor, so stunningly beautiful when he skates, an untouchable god on the ice. He thinks of Victor at the house party at the dorm, so tightly wound up that he seemed to be made of stone, of how he finally broke down and begged for Yuuri to take control. Yuuri thinks about the Victor he's seen his whole life, in front of the cameras, and the Victor he knows now, when there's nobody else around to perform for. Yuuri thinks of the goofball who danced nude in his hotel room last night, and the way Victor's body transforms into something otherworldly when he skates.

He thinks of Victor, lying on the rink barrier at midnight, crying.

 _He's going to find out_ , Yuuri knows, but he can't bring himself to say it, so he puts a smile on his face. "It was good," he says. "I'm going to the final."

If Victor feels the medal when he goes in to hug Yuuri tight, he doesn't say anything. Instead he murmurs into Yuuri's ear: "I'm so glad. You deserve it, Yuuri."

Yuuri nods, staring straight ahead, the words _I almost beat you_ trapped in his throat. They wrap around his windpipe, growing bigger and bigger inside his mind, and the grip seems to get tighter with each and every breath.

Yuuri's phone buzzes in his pocket. He sneaks it out to check it, holding the screen behind Victor's back.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Nothing’s As It Seems, by Gordi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjc8ZH6m7uc)_      **3m ago**  
“And everything you've ever lost  
Must have a reason it is never found  
Convince yourself you're better off  
And you'll be fine  
Or at least that's how it sounds, but  
With the dark comes a harsher light  
And you can't shake the shadow above  
That's following you well into the night  
Paint your face on with a smile, and say to them don't worry  
Carry on just for a while, you get lost and hurried  
Can you see it now?  
That nothing's as it seems somehow”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri), where you can follow and support me in other ways if you'd like!  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me) and [Chapter 16](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/164344256147/saniika-setting-sun-chap16-iwritevictuuri)  
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right) and also drew [two scenes from Chapter 12](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/163014630514/i-had-done-this-a-while-back-but-just-finished-it).  
> \- shemakesmeforget made a lovely [mood board](https://shemakesmeforget.tumblr.com/post/161818989903/setting-sun-by-iwritevictuuri-fic-rec) <3  
> \- fellow writing pal Nenya made a [book/album cover](http://paledreamsblackmoths.tumblr.com/post/163851009780/i-its-petty-but-when-youve-run-out-of-fucks-to) that is so effin' cool  
> \- Pine drew [Victor torn between his responsibilities and his love for Yuuri](http://salanayuniasis.tumblr.com/post/165702031791/youre-gonna-have-to-face-it-youre-addicted-to) <3 <3  
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-lMhCtmRs&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx&index=129)


	20. The Days Are Short And I've Wrote Me My Last Rhyme

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy, friends! I like this chapter a lot. I don't have much to say except that I've had about half of these songs planned since I began writing this fic a year and a half ago, so I'm extremely thrilled to finally use them. I hope you enjoy, and please let me know if you do!

As soon as Victor Nikiforov assumed the mantle of the most selfish son of a bitch on the planet, he knew his day would come. He’d been mostly fine with it.

In the moments of pulsating time before he’d kissed Yuuri Katsuki in Beijing, Victor had made a decision. He’d listened to Kishi Bashi jubilantly exclaim Yuuri’s intentions, asking _would you be my lover?_ , and he wondered if Yuuri understood the gravity of his actions, how fucking _perfect_ they’d been. How much they’d overwhelmed Victor’s last defences and pushed deep into the depths of his heart, how they’d awakened something in Victor that held a scale in its hand that weighed Yuuri Katsuki on one plate and Victor’s entire career on the other and had tipped in such a way that Victor just crashed into Yuuri and never wanted to let go.

Yuuri still doesn’t know about the lyric post that Victor had deleted from his drafts on the night of the Cup of China short program, as he drank away the sorrow that came from seeing Yuuri run from him. They'd had the same idea, a mere twenty-four hours apart, until it had seemed like everything was really over and Victor had forced himself to try and let go. He had deleted a lot of draft posts, in those first few hours of drinking, but there was one that hurt more than all the others combined.

 

@v-nikiforov: Lyric Post - [m’lover, by Kishi Bashi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJy2R31xpl8)   
“Would you be everything you wanted  
In a lover and an accomplice?  
Could you be her?  
Would you feel together and inebriated?  
Enabling of a fable  
We were never meant to be but together  
  
Did you to mean to misinterpret images  
Of our innocence on vestiges of virtue?  
Would you feel pity for the masses?  
We were adding and subtracting with scandals that we made together…”

 

Victor hadn’t had the courage to take lyrics right from the chorus, but Yuuri _had._ Victor had chickened out and deleted his post, but Yuuri hadn't. Marvelous, perfect, incredible Yuuri, who could unnerve and thrill and surprise Victor in ways he didn’t even think possible.

Victor had made a decision. He had kissed Yuuri Katsuki, taken him to bed, seen him again, embarked on an outright affair, all the while knowing that he’d someday have to pay what was surely a very grave price. Victor was violating the deal he’d struck with Yakov; he was violating Yuri Plisetsky’s trust and threatening his reputation. He was creating the perfect storm of scandal. So when the FFKK representatives whisked him away before he could see Yuuri’s free skate at Rostelecom, Victor had been strangely relieved. He’d been caught, and it was all over. He would sacrifice himself on the altar of love; the story of Russia’s Champion would end in a whimper, and it would be horrific, but it would have been worth it, even if just for a few weeks with Yuuri. He’d even had an idea of what he’d send to Yuuri now that it was all falling apart—a coda, of sorts. An echo, the same swing of the door to close it in a poetic mirror to how it had originally been opened.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[I Am the Antichrist to You, by Kishi Bashi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaFnOnxPMBk)_       **Just Now  
** “And my heart it shook with fear  
I’m a coward behind a shield and spear  
Take this sword and throw it far  
Let it shine under the morning star  
  
Who are you? Who am I to you?  
I am the Antichrist to you  
Fallen from the sky with grace  
Into your arms race…”

 

And then Anna and Mikhail had offered him a coaching contract.

Victor had deleted the post under the desk as he listened to their terms, nodding along robotically, his mind trying desperately to course-correct. He’d accepted the contract—of course he had—and for a moment it had seemed as though he and Yuuri and Yurio were all safe, were all fine, were all okay.

All Victor had to do was retire from skating, and chain himself to the Russian team for the rest of his life.

They land in Saint Petersburg in mid-morning. Victor doesn’t even have a chance to take his luggage home before he’s whisked off to the arena, where the final contracts are waiting—as are several junior skaters who are absolutely dying to meet him, as well as a bunch of sports reporters who bustle around the front doors of the arena like pigeons. The entire building seems abuzz with the news, desperately waiting for confirmation. The whole world stands at a fork in the road, straining to see how Russian figure skating history will change today.

Inside, in Yakov’s windowless office, Victor wins the traditional Feltsman Staring Contest for the first time in his life; when Yakov opens his mouth to speak, Victor has to grip the arm of his chair to keep from starting at the sound.

“So,” Yakov grunts. “You want to coach.”

Victor’s heart screams _no_. He opens his mouth and says “Yes.”

Yakov narrows one eye, considering him with skepticism. “And this is a decision you’ve come to based on…?”

Victor gives a small half-smile. It’s based on many things; the steadily ticking clock of his own body, aging and growing more prone to injury with each passing day. The calculus of how much longer he can realistically expect to compete anyhow; the chemistry of how the cartilage degrades and disappears from his knees, and the physics of how his joints weaken each time they bear the brunt of a jump. It's based on the fact that Victor was just about ready to walk away from figure skating forever at the end of last year's Grand Prix, until the extremely drunk love of his life came crashing in and turned everything upside-down. It's based on the fact that Victor is stuck, and can't say no, because every excuse he gives will inevitably crumble and the truth will come out that he's been having an affair with his student's competitor. It's based on the fact that Victor doesn't think Yakov will let him come back to skating anyway, based on what he's said already; and that Victor can't run away with Yuuri to live happily ever after in Japan without, again, revealing their relationship and ruining Yuuri's reputation. Both Yuris have years ahead of them yet; Victor has been living on borrowed time. It's based on the fact that he's a selfish son of a bitch, and that he'd inevitably get what's coming to him, and this is the least explosive of the universally bad options laid before him.

Victor exhales. “It's time, isn't it?” he finally replies. “I'm almost twenty-eight. Better to retire before I injure myself seriously, and I'm already coaching Yurio, so why not make it official?”

Yakov still looks skeptical, but he shrugs. “I'll go get the paperwork.” He pulls himself up out of his chair and leaves, lumbering down the hall to pester his long-suffering secretary to print out the contract the FFKK emailed over.

As soon as he's alone, Victor deflates in his chair, and pulls out his phone. He's already getting texts and messages congratulating him on his new career, mourning his retirement, and jokingly celebrating the fact that he's no longer competition (though some people are definitely not joking). Victor ignores everything, and goes straight to Instagram.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Chosen, by Rose Cousins](https://open.spotify.com/track/3ujSwWY88I6RX2BJRMn6pe?si=037Fgw8kSbeqYzDCuNA-yw)_     **Just Now  
** “Take these arms, these legs  
They are broken  
This love is too much; I am frozen  
And I don't know if I have what it takes  
To be chosen  
  
I arose with wings, and I am flightless  
Someone's carving a statue in my likeness  
And I will never live up to this portrait  
I'm just posing  
  
And I don't know if I have what it takes  
To be chosen.”

 

Victor starts to calculate what time it is in Japan before he remembers that he doesn't have to—Yuuri is in the same city, and very possibly in the same building. His phone buzzes with a notification, as if Yuuri is reading his mind.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[You Know Where to Find Me, by Imogen Heap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxvOxqNS7Kg)_      **Just Now  
** “In a public place, private thoughts  
A reminder of a precious loss  
(I can be a source of constant reassurance)  
Let the breeze block sadness drop  
Oh-oh-ohhhhhhhhhh  
Won’t you be-  
Be still with me?  
  
Heart, lung, soul  
Arteries and all  
A shoulder at the ready  
Vital organs on call.”

 

Victor can't stop his mournful smile. Yuuri is so beautiful, down to his core, and he loves Victor so much—or, at least, he loves a version of Victor that's been constructed over years and years. Victor the man is a composite, an amalgamation of roles and expectations and rumours and cultivated selfies. Yuuri's the first person who's made Victor feel comfortable enough to set down some of those shields, but there's always a tiny voice in the back of his head, whispering: _he won't love you if you're a failure. No one will._

Declarations of love seem so much easier in the afterglow on a hotel bed. Now Victor is in the office where he signed his life away at the age of seven; he'd even sat in this very same chair, his little legs swinging in the air, unable to grasp what he was about to do. That first meeting had changed the course of his whole life; now, two decades later, Victor Nikiforov has met the challenge of becoming the man he promised he would be—and it's all a papier-mâché sham, ready to fall apart as soon as he gets soggy, and the applause keeps getting louder even as he desperately begs in silence for someone to pour water on his head.

 _Yuuri won't love you if you're a failure,_ the voice whispers again. _No one will. No one does._

Victor nods. He knows.

Yakov's footsteps click in the hall, and Victor straightens up. Time to avoid becoming a failure, as much as he can. And then maybe he can sort out his inevitable heartbreak later.

Yakov returns, dropping some freshly printed papers onto the desk as he flops back into his chair. “You've seen the FFKK's offer?”

Victor has seen it. It's a good decent amount more than he's making right now. It's the most he's ever been paid to just be a figure skater; his fortune has come from a combination of good sponsorship decisions and inheritance he'd rather not talk about—

He blinks as it dawns on him that this amount is not a payment for being a figure skater; it's for teaching other people how to be figure skaters.

Oof.

“I accept the terms,” Victor says, reaching over for a pen from Yakov's collection. “Five years minimum contract, part time work with the junior division, choreography and associate coaching of the senior skaters during the competitive season.”

Yakov nods. “Any requests?”

Victor knows that this isn't meant to be a real question he can answer; it's a hypothetical, a formality, a series of sounds that Yakov has to make in order to avoid being labeled as an iron-fisted maniac, even though that's exactly what he is. Victor smirks.

“No chance I can pick who I get to coach, is there?”

Yakov rolls his eyes. “You'll work with the top senior competitors who train here and be happy with it,” he replies. “Now are you signing or not?”

Victor's already done it. The last stroke of his signature bore down too hard, scratching a line in the paper. He sets the pen down with a _click._

“Very well,” Yakov says, flicking his fingers dismissively towards the door. “Welcome aboard, Coach Nikiforov. Now go home; you've got a full schedule for the rest of this week.”

Out in the hallway, Victor relishes the last few seconds of his life as a figure skater, lingering outside of Yakov's office for as long as he dares. But all things must come to an end, and so he sends a lyric post to Instagram and then opens the door to the main reception area of the rink. The room explodes with noise from skaters and press alike, and Victor imagines opening his arms to it, welcoming the devouring masses.

He doesn't enjoy a single second of it, but deep down Victor knows it's all deserved, because he's the most selfish person who ever lived.

The introductions and interviews and organizing of schedules all take forever. He doesn't get out of the arena for hours, and isn't able to check Instagram until he finally gets home that night.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[You Know Where to Find Me, by Imogen Heap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxvOxqNS7Kg)_      **5h ago  
** “Don’t mistake my charity  
For what it is:  
A deep need to be needed—necessary.  
Don’t mistake my open arms  
For what they are  
They can turn on you  
So show me the money  
(Show me the money…)  
  
Blue and green,  
Fresh eyes on me  
I’m young again  
All things to men with  
Bite-sized life boats”

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[You Know Where to Find Me, by Imogen Heap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxvOxqNS7Kg)_      **4h ago  
** “Be still with me  
If you want to be alone  
If you’d rather die than tell  
You’ll know where I’ll be  
Where to find me  
For hard talk  
To call it off or bring it on  
A proposal  
If you’re broken,  
I’ll be here,  
I’ll be here…”

  
~

 

On the day that Yuuri Katsuki turns twenty-four years old, he wakes up with something in his heart.

It’s a little piece of static, a patch of chaotic television snow, and it bounces around inside his chest and grows with every breath he takes. Yuuri can’t explain why, but he knows it has a shape and it has a purpose; this is no ordinary clutch of anxiety, but is instead a constantly-shifting mass of potential energy, waiting for the right moment to explode with kinetic purpose.

Yuuri pulls out his phone and opens Instagram without much thought; he’s too focused on the feeling in his chest, which strikes against his ribs with terrifying force when he sees a post from Victor from the night before. Victor's barely been around for the past three days; the coaching job has kicked in at full force, demanding twelve-hour days and a lot more paperwork than you'd ever think possible—at least that's what Victor has said, in hurried direct messages captioned with hearts and apologies for being so busy. Today, though, there's an actual post in Yuuri's feed.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Over and Over Again, by Nathan Sykes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uJ4kJiMUAc)_      **6h ago  
** “Girl when I'm with you I lose track of time  
When I'm without you, you're stuck on my mind  
Be all you need ’til the day that I die  
I'll love you  
Over and over again  
  
So don't ever think I need more; I’ve got the one to live for  
No one else will do, yeah, I'm telling you  
Just put your heart in my hands  
  
Promise it won't get broken  
We'll never forget this moment  
It will stay brand new  
'Cause I'll love you  
Over and over again…”

 

God. _God_ . Yuuri’s so in love it feels like he might rip in half. The response he sends makes him think of sunshine on his face, because—and this is the kind of dorky shit that happens in your brain when you’re in love—that’s how Victor makes him feel. And now he can actually _say_ that, which is just…kind of the best.

  
@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Oh, What a World, by Kacey Musgraves](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hwRe7scRiY)_      **Just Now  
** “Did I know you once in another life?  
Are we here just once or a billion times?  
Well, I wish I knew, but it doesn't matter  
'Cause you're here right now, and I know what I feel  
  
And these are real things  
Yeah, these are real things  
  
Oh, what a world, don't wanna leave  
All kinds of magic all around us, it's hard to believe  
Thank God it's not too good to be true  
Oh, what a world, and then there is you…”

 

The feeling in Yuuri’s chest continues to grow throughout the morning. He opens his dorm room door to find it covered in streamers and ribbons, with a scrawled “Happy Birthday!” on printer paper signed by everyone in the building—including Yurio, he notes, a fact which makes the feeling expand ever so slightly. He sits through a cold breakfast and an even colder walk to the arena, checking his phone every so often. Victor replies just as Yuuri gets into the arena, so he loiters in the entryway, leaning against the bank of little gachapon capsule vending machines that have several years of dust on them. It is a universal truth of skating arenas, no matter where Yuuri goes; there are always capsule machines, eager to take money from children and deliver fragile trinkets encased in little plastic balls. Yuuri drums his fingers against one of them as he refreshes his Instagram feed, waiting for his fogged-up glasses to clear before he can read the post.

  
@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Gentle Storm (I Found Peace), by Elbow](https://open.spotify.com/track/7q1CU4gh2o8FQ03KvikNuf?si=Ss96n4qeQNCJ5b8sOkT4jA)_      **2m ago  
** “I will fly swift and true straight to you, like an arrow  
Just to be where you lie  
Meet my quest, do my shambling best to be near you  
Where you lie  
I've found peace in your arms  
Gentle storm, rage my way  
Fall in love with me  
Fall in love with me  
Fall in love with me  
Every day…”

 

The little ball of energy in Yuuri’s chest grows bigger, and now he can identify it better: it’s excitement. Something joyous, wonderful, soaring, _big._ Something is going to change today. Yuuri can just sense it.

He only has time to post one reply before Yakov has him on the ice warming up.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[My Favourite Book, by Stars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McD0wKt3eUQ)_      **Just Now**    
“When the days are long, and the thunder with the storm, can always get me crying  
You can make my bed, I'll fall into it, shattered but not lonely  
Because I never knew a home, until I found your hands, when I'm weathered  
You come to me, you're my best friend  
  
And that is why we’ll always make it  
How I know your face, all the ways you move, you come in, I can read you  
You’re my favourite book  
All the things you say, the way you shift your eyes  
I never knew there was someone, to make me come alive”

 

The morning flies by; Yuuri has never had practice go so well before. He catches Victor’s eye on the ice at about eleven, and Victor smiles so brightly that Yuuri thinks his heart might explode. The excitement inside him keeps growing, keeps getting more frantic, but it’s not the loose mania that normally marks his anxiety; it’s got a purpose, and that purpose involves Victor.

At the lunchtime break, Yuuri wolfs down his normal sandwich in his normal corner and sends replies to the birthday messages from his parents, sister, Phichit, and Chris. Then he opens Instagram.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Heart of Nowhere, by Noah and the Whale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4Am7NbCmeU)_      **21m ago  
** “If I don’t belong by you,  
I don’t belong anywhere  
You know I’d follow you  
To the heart of nowhere  
It’s just two kinds of people:  
The god-fearer and the godless  
cowards and the faithless  
And I would stand by you.”

 

The excitement in Yuuri’s heart makes it pound so hard that he can feel the pulse all the way down his arms. He puts down his sandwich and slips his earbuds into his ears, even though he already knows which song he wants to send. It’s a track he’s kept on the back burner for many weeks because of one specific line that was far too vulnerable, far too much, far too easy to point to as a moment when a line would be crossed and things could fall apart. Yuuri hadn’t even let himself imagine posting it for Victor, so great was the emotional terror, but today—today is the day.

He doesn’t know why he does it. He doesn’t let himself overthink it. He just presses Post.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[What This World is Coming To, by Nate Ruess](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXElWgsMpvc%20)_      **Just Now  
** “You know that I can't stop thinkin' 'bout you  
You're the source of everything I do  
You brought faith to songs I sing  
So I went and bought a diamond ring  
I wanna spend each night here with you  
Yeah you took everything I was  
And you turned it into something I've become  
Good God, what's a boy to do?”

 

Yuuri stares at the post for half a minute and he waits for the inevitable shudder of regret, but he never gets the chance before his phone shakes in his hand with a notification: _@v-nikiforov has a new post on Instagram._

 _That was fast,_ is all Yuuri can think, and as the excitement squeezes the air from his lungs he swipes up to look.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[The Book of Love, by The Magnetic Fields](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkjXr9SrzQE)_      **Just Now  
** “The book of love is long and boring  
And written very long ago  
It's full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes  
And things we're all too young to know  
  
But I, I love it when you give me things  
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings  
I, I love it when you give me things  
And you, you ought to give me wedding rings”

 

… _Oh,_ Yuuri blinks. _Oh._

He waits for the excitement to transform into panic. It doesn’t.

 _My name is Yuuri Katsuki_ , he thinks instead. _I’m 24 years old. I’m a dime a dozen skater from Japan. I’m one of the only foreign skaters to train at the Saint Petersburg rink. I know what I want to do._

 _What is that?_ he asks himself, because he can’t quite glimpse the full extent of the answer. Or maybe he can, but he won’t let himself say it.

This is a joke, he decides. It’s a goof. It’s a game of lyric chicken. Victor didn’t freak out at the Nate Ruess song; he found the sweet loving humour in it and decided to respond in kind, because they’re in love, and maybe Yuuri isn’t going to fuck it all up with just one wrong decision. Maybe it's just a fun memory they'll laugh about later.

He consciously decides to avoid unpacking the reason why the feeling in his chest is whispering nothing but _yes, good, keep going, this is real._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[I Would, by COIN](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITaOWPFRyMg)_      **Just Now  
** “A dream from a past life  
Free like the first time that we ever talked alone  
Tell me and I'll stick around  
Settle in a ghost town  
Just to call a place my own  
  
I don't know what to do, I think I might be in love with you  
I don't know what to do, I think I might be in love with you  
  
Oh, oh, oh, oh  
If you wanted me to stay around  
I could, I said  
Oh, oh, oh, oh  
If you really wanna settle down  
I would  
(You know I would)”

 

Yuuri spends the afternoon in a complete daze. Victor is in the exercise room, supervising Yurio’s stretching routine as well as getting to know some of the other skaters he’ll be coaching. Yuuri stumbles through practicing his routines, marking all the jumps, afraid to put too much energy into anything for fear of losing control.

_My name is Yuuri Katsuki. I’m 24 years old. I know what I want to do._

He thinks about the lyric post Victor sent, but no matter what he does Yuuri can’t work himself up into an anxious meltdown about it. It’s _bizarre_ , because by all accounts he should be in the fetal position by now. The excitement should be showing its sharp edge, transforming giddiness into adrenaline; but it’s still contained inside him, seething and bubbling but not boiling over.

By the time Yuuri finishes for the day, he’s avoided panicking to the point where he’s nearly achieved nirvana. He emerges from the shower and unlocks his phone to see another post from Victor:

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Just Say Yes, by Snow Patrol](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THjHNRBq7DQ)     _**3h ago  
** “Just say yes  
Just say there's nothing holding you back  
It's not a test, nor a trick of the mind  
Only love  
  
Just say yes  
Cause I'm aching, I know you are too  
For the touch of your warm skin  
As I breathe you in  
  
I can feel your heart beat through my shirt  
This was all I wanted, all I want  
It's all I want...”

 

The excitement inside his chest takes a clearer shape, and Yuuri nearly drops his phone when he realizes what it is.

“I know what I want to do,” he murmurs out loud. “I want—”

— _Yuuri, no_. He claps his hand over his mouth, and nearly jumps out of his skin when his phone buzzes, this time with a private message.

 

@v-nikiforov: _do you have birthday plans? <3 _

 

_Yuuri, no._

His fingers begin to fly across the keyboard of their own accord. The excitement pushes him onward: _Yuuri, yes._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Can I come to your place?_

@v-nikiforov: _How’s 7? I’ll order sushi, I know a really good place. Not as good as Hasetsu, but as close as I can find. Their katsudon is acceptable ;-)_

@katsukiyuuri: _Perfect._

 

And then he flips back to the timeline and creates a new post.

_Yuuri. Yes._

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Alpenglow, by S. Carey](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_nT8TLEWhg)_      **Just Now  
** “I was wondering if you'd be my wife?  
Be the compass in my rugged life  
Calm this quaking leaf until  
You will, you will, you will  
All mine…”

 

Yuuri's heart just might crack apart but he can't bring himself to care.

_I know what I want to do._

_I’m a dime a dozen figure skater from Japan. I’m in love with Victor Nikiforov, and he’s in love with me. I am 24 years old._

_I know what I want to do._

The excitement is taking shape, flowing in a singular direction now, pulling Yuuri towards his fate. He gathers his things and walks out of the locker room, winding down the halls, towards the front door of the arena, eyes glued to his phone, waiting for the response.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[Let’s Get Married, by Bleachers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoDlZpmBfQ0)_      **1m ago  
** “Hey baby, baby  
I've been gone, I've been gone, I've been so far gone lately  
I know it's bad when we look out  
But bad, bad people  
Don't live in our house, so  
I’m gonna look good for you honey  
Get my myself together, spend you all of my money, yeah  
I know it's hard enough to love me  
But I woke up in a safe house singing  
Honey let’s get married…”

 

 _Victor might not think this is a joke,_ Yuuri realizes. But he knew that. He knew it five hours ago. He’s known it all afternoon.

Why isn’t he freaking out? Why isn’t he comatose from the brain overload of seeing this all play out? Why isn’t he afraid?

The fuzzy feeling in his chest already has the answer: _I know what I want to do._

Yuuri stops just by the arena’s front door, next to the bank of gachapon vending machines and their cheap little trinkets. The excitement in his heart snaps into full focus.

_My name is Yuuri Katsuki. I’m twenty-four years old. I know what I want to do._

  
  
~

 

That night, Yuuri arrives at the sidewalk in front of Victor’s apartment building and finds he can go no further. Anxiety rushes through his veins, making him shiver.

It’s seven on the dot. A clock chimes in the far distance, and Yuuri counts the gongs, praying for his feet to behave themselves and knowing that they won’t. He pulls his phone out of his pocket.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _hey_

@v-nikiforov: _Is everything okay?_

@katsukiyuuri: _I’m outside._

@v-nikiforov: _Come on up! My buzzer number is 584._

@katsukiyuuri: _actually_

@katsukiyuuri: _could you come outside?_

 

_My name is Yuuri Katsuki. I’m twenty-four years old. I know what I want to do._

Yuuri digs in his coat pocket and lets his fingers brush against the items inside, stilling them from rattling around, forcing himself to make peace with their terrifying tangibility.

Overhead, it begins to snow, fat flakes descending in perfect silence. Yuuri watches them, mesmerized, and he’s only pulled out of his reverie by the shadow that falls across his face as Victor steps into his view.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “What’s up?”

The excitement in Yuuri’s chest crawls up his throat and wraps itself around his brain, settling in, and suddenly Yuuri is calmer than he’s ever been before. He bites his lip.

“I have something for you.”

Victor tilts his head to the side, just a little. “But…it’s your birthday. If anything I should have a present for _you_. Is this a thing in Japan?”

Yuuri shakes his head. “I…I just woke up this morning and I realized I wanted to do this.”

He looks back down at his phone; he saved a lyric post as a draft as he was getting ready earlier, though in retrospect he's been saving the song for weeks and weeks, waiting for the right moment. Yuuri lets his thumb hover for two more breaths before he hits Post; he watches Victor’s phone screen light up with the notification, and then Yuuri sets his phone down on the low stone wall that marks the edge of Victor’s building and presses Play on his music app, letting the song stream out from his phone’s speakers. Then he reaches out and takes Victor’s hand.

 

@katsukiyuuri: _Lyric Post -[Manchester, by Kishi Bashi](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BdPAItm_ks)_      **Just Now  
** “Oh hello  
Will you be mine?  
I haven't felt this alive in a long time  
All the streets are warm and grey  
  
I read the signs  
I haven't been this in love in a long time  
The sun is up; the sun will stay  
All for the new day  
  
Will you be mine?  
The days are short and I've wrote me my last rhyme  
All the streets are warm today  
I read the signs  
I haven't been this in love in a long time  
It's been a long time...”

 

Victor’s face is utterly unreadable. “Yuuri,” he whispers, voice thick.

Yuuri pulls his other hand out of his pocket and slides the ring onto Victor’s finger, inwardly sighing with relief when it fits. The excitement in Yuuri's chest begins to turn frantic; Victor’s hand jerks, and Yuuri looks up to see that he’s staring at the ring, blue eyes wider than they’ve ever been.

“Yuuri…”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t think of anything better,” he blurts. “I—I spent eight hundred rubles at the capsule machines getting the ones I liked.”

A drop of liquid splashes onto Victor’s coat sleeve, and Yuuri looks up to see him wipe away the tear track on his face.

“Are—” he feels his throat close up. “Are you mad?”

The smile that blossoms across Victor’s face is almost blinding. Yuuri has seen Victor smile plenty of times; in interviews, in candid photos, in selfies, on the podium. He’s never seen Victor look like this, smiling so wide that his mouth almost looks like a heart, his eyes crinkling up at the edges in the places where he’ll get wrinkles someday.

“Yuuri,” he murmurs, kissing Yuuri’s hand. “How could I be mad? You—” he looks over at Yuuri's phone. “You don't know even half of how happy I am right now.”

Yuuri's heart is beating like a hummingbird and he feels faintly dizzy. “Then—I have—I have this.” He takes Victor’s hand, turns it over, and places the second ring in the centre of his palm. “I…”

He can’t force the words out. The static in his mind has increased in volume, almost obliterating everything else. Nearby, he can very faintly hear as Kishi Bashi sings: _“Oh hello, will you be mine?_ ”

Yuuri’s vision narrows to their hands, as he watches Victor slide the ring onto his own finger. He's frozen in place, his heartbeat pounding through his ears, and everything seems faintly surreal. They stand there for a moment, rings very nearly touching, watching the cheap metal glint as it reflects the streetlight overhead.

Then Victor audibly inhales, and the feeling in Yuuri’s chest explodes.

In the space of an eyeblink Yuuri is by turns terrified, elated, overwhelmed, and completely incapable of rational thought; the feeling sends shivers down every limb, pitching him forward to crash into Victor, and he briefly thinks _immovable object, unstoppable force_ before Victor is kissing him back, hands desperately moving—pulling at the lapels of Yuuri’s coat, fisting into his hair, raking down his back.

“Upstairs,” Yuuri hears himself whisper. “Right now.”

“Oh my _god_ , Yuuri,” Victor moans in between kisses.

They somehow make it into the building, into the elevator, into the hall—Yuuri’s world has shrunk, the sum total of the universe embodied in him and Victor, and everything else is eternally beyond comprehension. They careen into the darkness of Victor’s apartment, the door slamming shut behind them; Victor backs Yuuri up against the wall, grinding against him, and Yuuri matches his rhythm until they’re both hard and gasping. Yuuri is moving out of pure animal instinct; his mind is clearer than it’s ever been, every neuron firing the same way: _Victor Victor Victor_ . He surges forward and turns them, reversing their position, pushing Victor into the wall a little more roughly than he intended, but Victor _moans_ in response, guttural and primal, as he pulls off Yuuri’s coat and then his shirt in desperate sharp movements.

“Tell me I’m yours,” Victor whimpers, grabbing Yuuri’s hand, his ring pressing into Yuuri’s skin as their fingers interlace.

Yuuri grins, baring his teeth, and bites Victor’s lower lip. “You’re mine,” he growls, pinning Victor’s hand to the wall and knocking a photograph off its hook. He barely hears it drop over the sound of their heavy breaths. “You’re _mine_. No one else can have you.” His lips find the flesh of Victor’s throat.

Victor gasps, tilting his head back to give Yuuri better access, his hands making deft work of Yuuri’s belt and pants. “Yes,” he murmurs, the sound vibrating across his Adam’s apple as Yuuri’s lips graze it. “Yes. Forever?”

“Forever,” Yuuri echoes, shoving his hand into Victor’s boxers, stroking his cock and relishing as he melts into incoherence. Yuuri leans in close, continuing his ministrations, and nips at Victor's earlobe before he whispers: “Next time you get interviewed by a reporter, they’ll think they’re getting a piece of you, but they won’t. Because you don’t belong to them. You don’t belong to the FFKK, or to the ISU. You belong to me.”

Victor pulls his own shirt off. “You need to be naked, right now,” he says. “Please.”

“If you insist,” Yuuri purrs back, shimmying out of his pants and boxers.

“Oh, no, I’m just asking,” Victor replies, yanking off his last sock. “I'm happy to do whatever you want to do.” He rolls his hips, pressing into Yuuri’s erection, and Yuuri presses back as if he could phase into Victor, intermingle atoms, become one being. Something suddenly dawns on him.

“I think I know what _you_ want to do,” he grins.

“Oh?” It’s such a typical Victor response, but there’s not a trace of the normal sweet teasing tone in his voice—there’s nothing but aching lust, a burning hot sense of desire that would be overwhelming if Yuuri weren’t being consumed by the exact same fire.

“Should I make you beg?” he asks, raking his nails gently across Victor’s hip bone and skittering across his inner thigh. “Have you plead to me over and over until I give you what you want?”

“I’m yours,” Victor gasps, his back arched off the wall, one ankle already wrapped around Yuuri’s shin to pull him closer. “I’m yours. All yours, all of me, Yuuri, please—”

“—say 'please' again,” Yuuri commands, letting his fingers drift between Victor’s thighs again, grinning at the short little gasps Victor makes.

“Please,” Victor half-sobs. “Fuck me, Yuuri, I’m yours, just take m— _aahh_ —” he dissolves into moans as Yuuri finally strokes his hole, letting his fingertips graze back and forth across impossibly sensitive skin, pushing just a little bit—

“Oh,” Yuuri breathes as his finger slips inside easily, with barely any resistance. Victor’s nails dig into the flesh of his back and he grinds down onto Yuuri’s hand, chasing the sensation.

“You can do more,” Victor whispers.

“I don’t want to hurt y—” Yuuri groans as his finger sinks deeper. “Wait, did you—did you prep yourself?”

Victor nods, grinning feverishly. “I thought—for your birthday,” he explains, his breath hot against Yuuri’s skin. “It was going to be an optional present but— _god_ , Yuuri, please just fuck me until I lose my mind.”

The overwhelming sense of _yes_ takes over Yuuri and he crashes into Victor again, kissing him harder than he’s ever kissed anyone, only breaking the kiss to come up for air.

“Condom and lube?” he gasps, and Victor juts his chin towards the ground.

“Pants pocket.”

Yuuri kneels to grab two packets out of Victor’s jeans, unrolling the condom in one smooth motion. His hands are shaking, the cheap ring twinkling in the gloomy half-light of the moon coming through Victor's curtains, and he nearly drops the lube when he rips it open. “What kind of night did you have planned?” he moans as he slicks himself up.

“Don’t know,” Victor replies, “I figured I’d see how you were feeling and take things in whatever direction they went but then you gave me a ring and now we’re here.”

Yuuri grabs at Victor’s ass, relishing how the ring on his own finger feels—solid, present, real. Victor wraps his leg around Yuuri’s waist and twines his arms around Yuuri’s neck, pressing their foreheads together.

“I love you, Yuuri,” he whispers.

Yuuri replies with another kiss, his hand gripping Victor’s thigh. Victor makes a noise that’s positively inhuman, standing on tiptoe, canting his hips upward so that Yuuri’s cock slides across his hole _._ Yuuri groans and reaches down to line himself up, and the head of his cock slips inside Victor so smoothly that it’s actually shocking, pulling a shuddering groan from Yuuri’s lungs. He grabs Victor’s other leg and pulls it up, chasing the tight heat of him, his breath coming short and sharp, gasping as he sinks inside to the hilt in one smooth motion. Victor's teeth graze against Yuuri’s lower jaw and chin as he wraps his legs around Yuuri’s waist.

“Is this okay?” he whispers.

Yuuri wraps his hands around Victor’s lower thighs to make sure he won’t fall. “You’re _incredible,_ ” he replies, punctuating the word with a thrust, relishing how Victor’s eyes roll back in his head from pleasure.

“You're o-one to talk,” Victor gasps. “Tell me if you need to let me down?”

Yuuri bites his lip, unable to contain his grin. “Oh, I won't,” he replies, thrusting again, sharply. “I could do this all night. I could do it forever.”

If Victor has an answer, it disappears into his moans as Yuuri keeps moving. He reaches up overhead, fingers scrabbling at the wall, failing to find purchase; each of Yuuri's thrusts draws a small aching sound, and when Victor tilts his head back in ecstasy Yuuri can't help but lean in and suck a large, obvious mark into his collarbone.

“Mine,” he hisses against Victor's skin.

“ _Yes_ ,” Victor whimpers.

“Touch yourself,” Yuuri orders between breaths. “Come apart for me, my Victor.”

Victor obeys, his moans louder as he strokes himself in rhythm with Yuuri's thrusts, and it doesn't take long before he comes with a shout, spilling over his hand, muscles tightening up around Yuuri's cock and driving him over the edge as well. They collapse down to the carpet, a tangle of sweat and limbs and afterglow, and Yuuri thinks he may never move a single muscle again but he's honestly okay with it.

“I haven't come that hard since I was a teenager,” he pants, white spots still exploding in front of his eyes. Victor doesn't reply, but instead pulls Yuuri to his chest, wrapping him in an embrace, and Yuuri puts his ear to Victor's chest and smiles at the sound of Victor's heart fluttering just as erratically as his own.

They lie together for a while, coming down from the high, before Victor finally breaks the silence.

“Would you hand me my phone?”

Yuuri raises his eyebrow but obliges, groaning under his breath as he sits up and the blood rushes from his head again. After a short amount of rummaging he retrieves Victor's phone.

“Thank you. Now…” Victor taps the screen a few times, and then grins slyly.

“What's up with you?” Yuuri asks playfully, and _holy shit I used to think I'd never get the chance to speak to this person_.

“I have an answer,” Victor says, his voice cracking. “In the traditional manner to which you’ve become accustomed.”

“Oh?”

Victor takes Yuuri’s chin and tilts his head upwards, kissing him gently. “You should check your Instagram notifications,” he murmurs against Yuuri’s lips. And so, with no small amount of reluctance, Yuuri sits up again, reaching for his jeans and fishing his phone from his pocket.

 

@v-nikiforov: _Lyric Post -[I Do, by Noah Derksen](https://noahderksen.bandcamp.com/track/i-do)_      **25s ago  
** “I loved you first and I’ll love you last,  
until our breath does pass  
You glisten white, oh, you glisten white—  
oh radiance! You emit the light  
Bright red roses, still uncoloured focus  
Your hands are mine to hold  
  
This will be forever now  
This will be forever now  
This will be forever now  
I do.”

 

At some point between heavy breaths Yuuri realizes he's crying, and when Victor reaches out to wipe the tears away Yuuri sees the glint of his ring and begins laughing as well.

“This,” he finally gasps, “is the best birthday present of all time.”

Victor hums. “Oh, Yuuri,” he murmurs. “Wait until you see what I'll get you next year.”

Yuuri stops. “Wait, really? What are you going to do?”

“No idea,” Victor replies, beaming, leaning in for a kiss. “But whatever it is, I'll be here with you, and that's a pretty good start.”

 

  
~

 

The next morning they get up early, walk Makkachin, and get breakfast from the blintz place near Victor's house, diets be damned. Then they walk to the arena, hand in hand, casting an eye around for people they know every so often, but it's hard to keep track of why no one can know about them when all Yuuri wants to do is to scream his love from the rooftops. Finally Victor slows to a stop just around the corner from the arena's front door.

“We should time our arrivals a little bit staggered,” he whispers. “You go first, you ostensibly live closer than I do. I'll wait like ten minutes and then go in.”

Yuuri tilts his head up and kisses him. “Deal,” he murmurs.

The crunch of tires on snow pierces the morning silence. Yuuri turns to go, but at the last second Victor grabs the hand with the ring on it and yanks him back for another kiss, this one longer, until they're both nearly out of breath. Finally Yuuri breaks away, blowing kisses back as he walks, because being in love is just plain grand if he does say so himself.

The rink has already had the heat turned on in anticipation of the day's training, and Yuuri's glasses fog up as soon as he walks inside. He's got to shower and change before anyone sees him, and as soon as his glasses clear up he can make a beeline for the change rooms—

A hand grips his shoulder, in a frighteningly familiar grip. Yuuri's whole body goes cold.

“You,” Yakov snarls in his ear. “In my office. Now.”

 _Oh,_ Yuuri thinks as he's led away. _This is how it ends._

He's deposited into a chair in Yakov's office with very little fanfare. Yakov leaves him there, alone to stew in his thoughts, and returns two minutes later with Victor in tow. He points Victor towards the second chair beside Yuuri, and then sits down behind the desk.

Yuuri's denial comes to a screeching halt, and he thinks he might throw up.

_This is how it ends._

“I am old,” Yakov says, “but I am not stupid.”

Yuuri’s mouth goes dry, and he clenches his right hand into a fist by his side. The ring digs into his skin, just barely painful, so he squeezes even harder, refusing to let himself wince. His heart is beating so fast he’s sure it’s going to skip a beat and then stop completely.

“I voiced my concerns to you, Victor, back when you came to me with this frankly ridiculous proposal,” Yakov continues, and Yuuri bites back a wave of nausea at the final word.

“Yes,” Victor says softly. “You did.”

Yuuri is frozen in place, unable to move, only able to conceive of Victor as a voice in his periphery. All he can do is watch his coach move slowly, deliberately, like a predator.

Yakov has been angry plenty of times. Yuuri knows that all too well; the man has a temper, and he knows how to wield it. He has never seen Yakov be this calm.

“I asked you for one thing, Victor. One thing. I told you that there was only one way to make this work, to keep everyone’s career intact, to avoid scandals that would kill Yuri Plisetsky’s chances at success. All you had to do was keep your fucking distance from Katsuki, because any fraternization could have destroyed us all.”

“Yakov—” Yuuri begins, but his throat closes up as soon as Yakov turns to glare at him.

“What is it, Katsuki?” he spits the name like it’s a curse.

 _This is how it ends,_ Yuuri realizes. _This is how I go out. Not in a blaze of glory, not with a gold medal around my neck, but in this cramped little office which smells like stale coffee._

He’s terrifyingly okay with it. He knows it’s the shock, sending him into fix-it mode; he knows that the adrenaline will wear off just a few minutes after they leave this place, and then the devastation will wash over him, pull him under, and completely tear him apart.

 _It’s okay,_ Yuuri tells himself. _You’ve always known you would fail. Just save Victor._

Save Victor.

“I can explain,” he hears himself say, and just barely holds back a wince before barrelling on. “There’s—it was me, I—”

“—Yuuri’s right,” Victor interrupts, his voice soft and unhurried. “It was him. And there is an explanation for all of this.”

Yuuri’s entire body goes ice cold, and tears spring into his eyes and begin to fall. He can’t stop them; he can’t move, can’t even breathe, because as soon as he does he’s going to completely break down.

Of course. Of _course_. Of course. Victor will be the one to destroy him, just as Yuuri always knew he would. It’s all been leading up to this; they’ve circled each other and fallen into gravitational orbit and gotten closer and closer, and now they’re about to collide and explode and obliterate absolutely everything. There was no way this was going to end well.

 _Do it, Victor,_ Yuuri silently begs. _Pull the trigger. Save your career. Save your relationship with Yakov. I’m not worth it, and we both know it._

“Well?” Yakov snaps, and Yuuri flinches so hard that he pushes his chair back with a hideous squeak against the linoleum. He’s already composing the very last lyric post he’ll ever send in his mind:  _[I’m not sorry I met you, I’m not sorry it’s over, I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save—](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5Or6-HOveg) _ ****

Something touches his right hand; Yuuri looks down and sees Victor’s fingers brushing against his ring, rubbing it gently like a good luck charm before pulling away. He finally looks up, and sees Victor looking right at Yakov, smiling almost beatifically, like he's just made a decision.

“Yakov,” he says, “we’re engaged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I am on [Tumblr](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/IWriteVictuuri), where you can follow and support me in other ways if you'd like!  
> \- Saniika has made some absolutely jaw-dropping beautiful art for this fic, coinciding with: [Chapter 10,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159547359342/saniika-setting-sun-by-little-lost-star-1) [Chapter 11,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/159842971002/saniika-sorry-chapter-11-setting-sun-by) [Chapter 12,](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160169618237/saniika-yes-victor-blurts-at-nearly-the) [Chapter 13](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/160713018397/saniika-the-afterglow-aaaah-somebody-save-me) and [Chapter 16](http://iwritevictuuri.tumblr.com/post/164344256147/saniika-setting-sun-chap16-iwritevictuuri)  
> \- azrieltheblacklighting has drawn art of [Yuuri's imaginary pole dance from Chapter 10](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/160035794109/i-just-need-the-right-inspiration-and-the-right) and also drew [two scenes from Chapter 12](http://azrieltheblacklighting.tumblr.com/post/163014630514/i-had-done-this-a-while-back-but-just-finished-it).  
> \- shemakesmeforget made a lovely [mood board](https://shemakesmeforget.tumblr.com/post/161818989903/setting-sun-by-iwritevictuuri-fic-rec) <3  
> \- fellow writing pal Nenya made a [book/album cover](http://paledreamsblackmoths.tumblr.com/post/163851009780/i-its-petty-but-when-youve-run-out-of-fucks-to) that is so effin' cool  
> \- Pine drew [Victor torn between his responsibilities and his love for Yuuri](http://salanayuniasis.tumblr.com/post/165702031791/youre-gonna-have-to-face-it-youre-addicted-to) <3 <3  
> \- Liz drew something I've always wanted to see drawn, which is [Victor breaking down at the rink in Chapter 14.](https://kanzaki19.tumblr.com/post/174301935386/something-i-sketched-for-an-amazing-story-setting) so please go give her some love!! <3 <3  
> \- by reader request, you can jump to the songs from this chapter by clicking [this link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha-lMhCtmRs&list=PLVog-2s_Iug_Eym1nWIDwODAjbH8o_hGx&index=129)


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